


Book 


PKKSKNTKD BY 



















The Wind Bloweth 

by BONN BYRNE 

1 \ 

cAuthor of “HANGMAN’S HOUSE,” “BROTHER SAUL,” 
and “FIELD OF HONOR” 

Illustrated by 

George Bellows 



GROSSET Cr DUNLAP, T^ublishers 

by arrangement Xtith THE CENTURY COMPANY 


VIl 


Copyright, 1922, by 
The Centuby Co. 


aiJHis B. I., Bi^own. Jnn. SO, 19-^!2 


FEINTED IN U. 8. A. 

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A DEDICATION: A PRAYER 


Whilst I was working on the various problems of 
“The Wind Bloweth” — problems of wisdom, of color, 
of phrasing, and trying to capture the elusive, unbearable 
ache that is the mainspring of humanity, and doing this 
through the medium of a race I knew best, a race that 
affirms the divinity of Jesus and yet believes in the little 
people of the hills, a race that loves its own land, and yet 
will wander the wide world over, a race that loves battle, 
and yet always falls — whilst doing this, it seemed to me 
that I was capturing for an instant a beauty that was 
dying slowly, imperceptibly, but would soon be gone. 

Perhaps it was the lilt of a Gaelic song in these pages 
that brought a sorrow on me. That very sweet language 
will be gone soon, if not gone already, and no book learn- 
ing will revive the suppleness of idiom, that haunting 
misty loveliness. . . . It is a very pathetic thing to see a 
literature and a romance die. 

But then, what ever dies? There is only change. 
For people in the coming times the economist and the 
expert in politics may have the beauty and wisdom old 
men have known in poems and strange tales. A mammoth 
building is as romantic to a new age as were the subtle 
carvings of Phidias to Greeks of old. For the master of 
commerce an oil-driven steel ship has the beauty old folk 
have seen in cloudy pyramids of sail. What we have 


A DEDICATION: A PRAYER 


considered beautiful will be quaint. And their tolerant 
smile will hurt us under the wind-swept grass. 

To whomever this writing of mine may give a mo- 
ment’s thought, a moment’s dreaming, I would ask a 
privilege, to call out of the romantic sunset the memories 
of Irish writers whom it is deep in my heart to praise, not 
masters of verse, but those whom in English we call 
novelists, being too exact in matters of language to name 
them poets: the Four Masters of Donegal who dedicated 
their tradition do chum gloire De agus onora na h Eireann, 
— to the glory of God and the honor of Ireland, — so high 
their motive was. And Thomas Moore, not as author 
of Irish ballads or of “Lalla Rookh,” but as writer of 
‘The Epicurean.” And Lever and Lover. And William 
Carleton from the County of Tyrone. And gentle Gerald 
Griffin, dead at his desk. And Michael and John Bariim, 
with their “O’Hara Tales.” And Sheridan Le Fanu, and 
Fitz-James O’Brien, who fell fighting for America. And 
Charles Kickham, who wrote “Knocknagow.” And I 
was all but forgetting Oliver Goldsmith, Dr. Johnson’s 
friend. 

Old fathers, old masters, I will never believe but that 
you wrote because it sprang from you as the lark sings in 
the high air. No little sum of money, no great man’s 
patronage, no doffed caps of the populace, could have 
moved you to strike out or write in one line. Old fathers, 
let me say aloud your names; it will give me bravery. 
And, sirs, take this book kindly to you. It is written 
caring nothing for money, nothing for light acclaim. Its 
faults are because I cannot write better yet. . . . 

Donn Byrne 


CONTENTS 


r ART PAGE 

I Dancing Town 3 

II The Wake at Ardee 57 

III The Mouth of Honey 109 

IV The Wrestler from Aleppo . . . .169 

V The Valley of the Black Pig . . . 229 

VI The Bold Fenian Men 287 

VII The Kingdom and the Power and the 

Glory 353 


I • 


v 


I 





PART ONE 


DANCING TOWN 



THE WIND BLOWETH 


DANCING TOWN 

§ I 

B ecause it was his fourteenth birthday they 
had allowed him a day off from school, his 
mother doubtfully, his uncles Alan and Robin 
with their understanding grin. And because there 
was none else for him to play with at hurling or 
foot-ball, the other children now droning in class 
over Caesar’s Gallic War, he had gone up the 
big glen. It was a very adventurous thing to go 
up the glen while other boys were droning their 
Latin like a bagpipe being inflated, while the red- 
bearded schoolmaster drowsed like a dog. First 
you went down the graveled path, past the 
greened sun-dial, then through the gate, then a 
half-mile or so along the road, green along the 
edges with the green of spring, and lined with the 
May hawthorn, white, clean as air, with a fra- 
grance like sustained music, a long rill of rolling 
white cloud. There was nothing in the world 
like the hawthorn. First it put out little bluish- 


4 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


green buds firm as elastic, and then came a my- 
riad of white stars. And then the white drift 
turned a delicate red, dropped, and the scarlet 
haws came out, a tasteless bread-like fruit you 
shared with the birds, and the stone of it you 
could whip through your lips like a bullet . . . 

He left the main road and turned into a loan- 
ing that came down the mountain-side, a thing 
that once might have been a road, if there had 
been any need for it, or energy to make it. But 
now it was only a wedge of common land bounded 
on both sides by a low stone wall. Inside one 
wall was a path, and inside the other a little 
rill, and betwixt the two of them were firm moss 
and stones. And here the moss was yellowish- 
green and there red as blood. And the rill was 
edged with ferns and queer blue flowers whose 
names he did not know in English, and now the 
water just gurgled over the rounded stones, and 
now it dropped into a well where it was color- 
less and cold and fresh as the air itself, and 
oftentimes at the bottom of a pool like that 
would be a great green frog with eyes that 
popped like the schoolmaster’s . . . 

And to the left of the loaning as he walked 
toward the mountain was a plantation of fir- 
trees, twenty acres or more, the property of the 
third cousin of his mother’s brother-in-law, a 


DANCING TOWN 


5 


melancholy, thin-handed man who lived on the 
Mediterranean — a Campbell, too, though one 
would never take him for an Ulster Scot, with 
his la-di-da ways and his Spanish lady. But the 
queer thing about the plantation was this, that 
within, half a mile through the trees, were the 
ruins of a house, bare walls and bracken and a 
wee place where there were five graves, two of 
them children’s. A strange thing the lonely 
graves. In summer the sun would shine through 
the clearing of the trees, and there was always 
a bird singing somewhere near. But it was a gey 
lonely place for five folk to lie there, at all times 
and seasons, and in the moonlight and in the 
sunlight, and when the rain dripped from the fir- 
trees. And all the company they had was the 
red fox slipping through the trees or the rab- 
bit hopping like a child at play or the hare- 
wide-eyed in the bracken. They must have been 
an unsociable folk in life to build a house in the 
woods, and they were an unsociable folk in death 
not to go to the common graveyard, where the 
dead folk were together, warm and kindly lying 
gently as in their beds . . . 

He turned now from the loaning to the moun- 
tain-side, passing through the heather on a little 
path the sheep made with their sharp cloven 
hoofs. In single file the sheep would go up the 


6 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


mountain-side, obedient as nuns, following the 
tinkle of the wether’s bell, and they hunting a 
new pasture they would crop like rabbits. Now 
was a stunted ash, now a rowan-tree with its 
red berries — crann caorthainn they call it in 
Gaidhlig, — and now was a holly bush would have 
red berries when all the bitter fruit of the rowan- 
tree was gone and the rolling sleets of winter 
came over Antrim like a shroud. Everywhere 
about him now was the heather, the brown, the 
purple heather with the perfect little flower that 
people called bells, all shades of red it was, and 
not often you would come across a sprig of white 
heather, and white heather brought you 
luck, just as much luck as a four-leaved sham- 
rock brought, and fairer, more gallant luck. 

A very silent place a mountain was, wee Shane 
Campbell thought, not a lonely but a silent 
place. A lonely place was a place you might be 
afraid, as in a wood, but a mountain was only 
a place apart. Down in the fields were the big 
brooks, with the willow branches and great trout 
in the streams; and fat cattle would low with a 
foolish cry like a man would n’t be all there, and 
come home in the evenings to be milked, satis- 
fied and comfortable as a minister; wee calves shy 
as babies; donkeys with the cross of Christ on 


DANCING TOWN 


7 


their back; goats would butt you and you not 
looking; hens a-cackle, and cocks strutting like 
a militiaman and him back from the camp; quiet 
horses had the strength of twenty men, and scam- 
pering colts had legs on them like withes. Up 
here was nothing, but you never missed them. 

The only thing to break the silence up here 
was the cry of an occasional bird, the plaintive 
call of the plover, the barking of an eagle, the 
note of the curlew, a whinny as of a horse of Lilli- 
put, the strange noise a pheasant makes and it 
rising from the heather: whir-r-r, like a piece of 
elastic snapping. Barring these you ’d hear 
nothing at all. And barring a mountainy man or 
woman, and they cutting turf, you ’d meet noth- 
ing unless it w^ere the sheep. 

You ’d never hear the sheep, and you coming; 
you ’d turn a wee bluff in the hill, and there they 
were looking, a long, solemn, grayish-white line, 
with aloof, cold eyes. You could never faze 
them. They ’d look at you cool as anything, and 
“What license have you to be here?” you ’d think 
they were saying. Very stupid, but unco digni- 
fied, the sheep. 

But up to the top of the mountain, where wee 
Shane was going, you ’d find no sheep; too bare 
and rocky there. There M be nothing there but 


8 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


a passing bird. On the top of the mountain was 
a little dark lake into which you could n’t see more 
than a foot, though they said the depth of it 
went down to the sea. There were no fish in it, 
people said, and that was a queer thing, water 
without fish in it, wee Shane thought, like a coun- 
try without inhabitants. In the sea were a power 
of fish, and in the rivers were salmon, long and 
thick as a man, and pike with snouts and ominous 
teeth, and furry otters, about which there was 
great discussion as to whether they were fish or 
animal ... In the lake in the lowlands — ^Loch- 
kewn, the Quiet Lake — were trout with red and 
gold and black speckles; and perch with spiked 
fins; and dark roach were easy to catch with a 
worm; and big gray bream were tasty as to bait, 
needing paste held by sheep’s wool; and big eels 
would put a catch in your breath. 

But in the lake on the mountain-top were no 
fish at all, and that was a strange thing . . . 

There was another eery thing about the moun- 
tain, and a thing wee Shane was slightly afraid 
of. Oftentimes you ’d be sitting by that lake, 
and sunlight all around you, and you ’d turn to 
come down, and there’d be a cloud beneath you, 
a cloud that rolled in armfuls of wool that bound 
the mountain as by a ring; and the lonely call of 


DANCING TOWN 


9 


a bird . . . and you 'd feel shut off from the 
kindly earth, as if you were on another planet 
maybe, or caught up into the air by some flying 
demon, and you knew the world was spinning 
like a ball through the treeless fields of space. 

And what could a wee fellow do up there then 
but sit quiet and cry and be terribly afraid? And 
your cry would be heard no more than the whinny- 
ing of the curlew ... Or you might venture 
down through it, and that was more terrible still, 
for the strange host of the air had their domicile 
in the clouds, and there they held cruel congress, 
speaking in their speechless tongue, and out of 
the clouds they took shape and substance . . . 
their cold, malevolent eyes, their smoky antennae 
of hands . . . and nothing to turn to for com- 
pany, not even the moody badger or the unfriendly 
sheep. There was no going down. You must 
stay there by the lake, and even then the cloud 
might creep upward until it capped mountain and 
lake, and enveloped a wee fellow scared out of 
his wits . . . 

Nevertheless, he was going to the top of that 
mountain, clouds or no clouds. For he had heard 
it said that the mirage of Portcausey was being 
seen again — the Devil’s Troopers, and the 
Oilean-gan-talamh-ar-bith, the Isle of No Land 


lO 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


At All, and the Swinging City, and they were to 
be seen in the blue heat haze over the sea from 
the Mountain of Fionn . . . 

And wee Shane was going to see it, clouds or 
no clouds, host or no host of the air. 


§ 2 

He had won half-ways up the mountain now, 
and from the brae of heather he could see the 
glen stretch like a furrow to the sea. The Irish 
Channel they called it on the maps in school, but 
Struth na Maoile it was to every one in the 
country-side, the waters of Moyle. Very green, 
very near, very gentle they seemed to-day, but 
often they roared like giants in frenzy, fanned 
to fury by the winds of the nine glens, as a bellows 
livens a fire. But to-day it was like a lake, so 
gentle . . . And there was purple Scotland, 
hardly, you M think, a stone’s throw from the 
shore — the Mull of Cantyre, a resounding name, 
like a line in a poem. It was from Mull that 
Moyle came, maol in Gaidhlig, bald or bluff . . . 
a moyley was a cow without horns. The Low- 
landers were coming into the Mull now, and the 
Highlanders being pushed north to Argyll, and 


DANCING TOWN 


II 


westward to the islands, like Oran and Islay. 
He knew the Islay men, great rugged fishers with 
immense hands and their feet small as a girl's. 
They sang the saddest sea-chanty in the world: 

■' 4 ^ trie mi sealltuinn o*n chnoc as airde, 

Dh* fheuch am faic mi fear abhata; 

An tig thun aniugh, no'n tig thu amaireach, 

'S mur tig thu idir, gur truagh a ta mi. 

“From the highest hilltop I watched to see my 
boatman,” went the sense of it. “Will you come 
to-day or will you come to-morrow? And if 
you never come — O God I help me!” 

And there was a chorus to it that was like a 
keening for the dead: 

Fhir a* bhata na horo eilef Fhir ct bhata na horo eile! 
Fhir a* bhata na horo eile! Mo shoraidh slan leat, fhir 
cC bhata! 

My heart’s good-by to you, O man of the b’oat! 

But nearer than Islay was their own Raghery — 
Rathlin Island the maps had it — he could see it 
now to the north. A strange little world of its 
own, with great caves where the wind howled 
like a starving wolf, and the black divers went 
into the water like a bullet. It was in the caves 
of Raghery that the Bruce took refuge, and it 
was there he saw the spider of Scots legend . . . 
Rathlin was queer and queer . . . There were 


12 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


many women with the second sight, it was told, 
and the men were very big, very shy, very gentle, 
except when the drink was in them, and then they 
would rage like the sea. 

A strange, mystical water, the Moyle, to have 
two isles in it like Islay of the pipers and Raghery 
of the black caves. It was over Moyle that 
Columkill went in his little coracle to be a hermit 
in Iona, the gentlest saint that Ireland ever knew. 
And it was over the Moyle that Patrick came, 
landing whilst the Druids turned their cursing 
stones and could not prevail against him. And 
it was on the Moyle that the Children of Lir swam 
and they turned into three white swans, with their 
great white wings like sails and their black feet 
like sweeps . . . And in the night-time they sang 
a strange, sad music, and the echoes of it were 
still in the nine glens . . . 

And northerly again were the pillars of the 
Giant’s Causeway, blue-black against the sun. 
They were made so that the Finn MacCool, the 
champion of the giants, could take a running 
jump over to Scotland and he going deer-hunting 
in the forests of Argyll. So the country folk 
said, but wee Shane thought different, knew differ- 
ent. The Druids had made It for their own oc- 
cult designs, the Druids, that terrible, powerful 
clan with their magic batons, and their sinister 


DANCING TOWN 


13 


cursing-stones, and their long, white, benevolent 
beards . . . 

And there, green and well kept as a duke’s 
garden, was the Royal Links of Portrush. And 
the Irish golfers said that it was harder than St. 
Andrew’s in Scotland and better kept. There 
King James had played a game before he went 
down to the defeat of the Boyne Water. 

“And if he golfed as well as he fought,” 
Shane’s Uncle Robin used to laugh, “they s’ould 
never have let him tee up a ball on the course I” 

Eigh! how wonderful it all was I wee Shane 
felt : Raghery and the waters of Moyle ; Portrush 
and the Giant’s Causeway; the nine glens with 
the purple heather, and the streams that sang as 
they cantered to the sea ; the crowing grouse and 
the whinnying curlew, and the eagles barking on 
the cliffs; the trout that rose in the summer’s eve- 
ning, and the red berries of the rowan; the cold, 
clear lakes, and the braes where the blueberries 
grow. He could well understand the stories 
they told of Napper Tandy, and the great rebel 
in the gardens of Versailles. Napoleon had 
found him weeping amid all that beauty. 

“Don’t be afraid, Napper Tandy. I shall 
keep my word and send General Hoche to 
Ireland.” 

“It ’s not that, sir ; it ’s not that.” And Tandy 


14 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


could not keep the tears back. “Och, County 
Antrim, it ’s far I ’m from you now!” 


§ 3 

He had reached the cairn of round stones that 
marks the town land of Drimsleive, and was 
turning the brae when a voice called to him: 

“Eh, wee fellow, is it mitching from school 
you are?” 

An old woman in a plaid shawl was coming 
slowly down the hillside. He recognized her for 
Bridget Foe MacFarlane of Cushendhu, a cotter 
tenant of his Uncle Alan’s. 

“No, cummer,” he told her; “I ’m not mitching. 
I got the day off.” 

“For God’s sake I if it is n’t wee Shane Camp- 
bell I And what are doing up the mountain, wee 
Shane?” 

“Ah, just dandering.” 

“I was up mysel’,” she went on, “to the top of 
it, because I heard tell there was a cure for sore 
eyes in the bit lake on the top. Not that I put 
much store in such cures, but there ’s no use let- 
ting anything by. I got a pair of specs from a 
peddling man of Ballymena,” said she, “but they 


DANCING TOWN 


15 


don’t seem to do me much good. I ’m queer and 
afeared about my eyes, hinny. It would be a 
hard thing for me to go blind and none about 
the wee bit house but mysel’.” 

“Ay! I should think it would be a terrible 
thing to be a dark person,” wee Shane nodded. 

“Och, it would n’t be so bad if you were born 
that way, for you ’d know no different. And 
if you went blind and you young, there ’s things 
you could take up to take the strain from your 
head like a man takes up piping. When 
you ’re old it ’s gey hard. If you ’re an old man 
itself, it ’s not so bad, for there ’ll always be a 
soft woman to take care of you. But if you ’re 
an old cummer, without chick or child, it ’s hard, 
agra vig. My little love, it ’s hard.” 

“Maybe it ’s in your head, Bridget Roe. My 
Uncle Robin says there ’s a lot of sickness that ’s 
just in your head.” 

“I trust to my God so, and maybe your Uncle 
Robin ’s right, for there does be a lot in my head, 
and it going around like a spinning-wheel. I ’m 
a experienced woman, wee Shane, too experienced, 
and that’s the trouble. You’ve no’ heard be- 
cause you ’re too young and you would no’ under- 
stand. I was away from here for twenty years,” 
she said, “for more nor twenty. And I knew a 
power of men in my time, big men, were needful 


i6 THE WIND BLOWETH 


of me. And a power of trouble I raised, too, 
and it does be coming back to me and me in my 
old days . . . But you ’ll be wanting to be getting 
on ?'’ 

“Och, no, Bridgeen Roe; there’s no hurry.” 

“It does me good to have a wee crack, the 
folk I see are so few . . . Aye I There was a 
power of trouble. There were two men killed 
themselves and families broken up all by reason 
of me. I meant no harm, wee Shane, but it hap- 
pened, and it does be troubling me in my old days. 
And I sit there afeared by the peat fire, and when 
I ’ve thought too much on it, I get up and go to 
the half-door. And I look out on the Moyle, 
wee Shane, and I think: that ’s been roaring since 
the first tick of time, and I see the stars so many 
of them, and the moon that never changed its 
shape or size, and it comes to me that nothing 
matters in the long run, that the killed men were 
no more nor caught trout, and the rent families 
no more nor birds’ nests fallen from a tree . . . 
None of us are big enough that anything we do 
matters . . . And then another feeling comes on 
me, that God is around, and that He ’ll be dread- 
ful hard . . . And a wee bit of luck comes my 
way. The hens, maybe, are laying well, and 
there’s a high price on the eggs, and I think. 


DANCING TOWN 


17 


sure He's the Kindly Man, after all . . . But 
if my eyes leave me, Shane Beg, what will I do? 
Sure, I won’t have the moon or the stars or the 
waters of Moyle to put things in their place. 
And there ’ll be no luck about me, so as I ’ll know 
Himself is the Unforgiving Man.” 

“But some one will take care of you, Bridget 
Roe.” 

“And who, agraf ’T is not me to go to the 
poorhouse, and take charity like a cold potato. 
And my name is MacFarlane, wee Shane, and 
they ’re a clan that fights till it dies, that never 
gives in. And it is n’t to the big ones I knew I ’d 
be writing for help . . . Sure I see them now, 
what ’s left alive of them, sitting by their firesides, 
figuring out their life, and tired with the puzzle 
of it; and then they’ll remember me for an in- 
stant, and a wee joy will come to them in the dim 
twilight. They ’ll remember as you ’d remember 
an old song you had n’t rightly got the air of. 
But you knew it was sweet and there was a grand 
swing to it . . . Aye, they ’ll remember me, and 
they looking into the heart of the fire . . . And 
you would n’t have me write them now and tell 
them I ’m only an old cailleach in a cabin on the 
mountain-side, and my eyes, that they ’ll remem- 
ber, are dull like marbles ... You wouldn’t 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


i8 


understand, wee Shane . . . But I ’m blethering 
too much about myself. And where is it you 
were going, my little jo? Where is it?” 

“I heard tell the Dancers were to be seen from 
the mountain-top over the sea, and I thought 
maybe I ’d go up and gi’e them a look, cum- 
mer . . . just a look.” 

“So you would, wee Shane, so you would. You 
wouldn't be your father’s son or your uncles’ 
nephew if you were to let a marvel like that pass 
by. It ’s after adventure you are, and you only 
four and ten years old. ’T is early you begin, 
the Campbells of Cosnamara. 

“But sure that is n’t adventure, cummer, to be 
seeing the Dancers in the heat haze of the day. 
Adventures are robbers and fighting Indians and 
things like in Sir Walter Scott.” 

“Oh, sure everything ’s adventure, hinny, every 
time you go looking for something queer and 
strange, and something with a fine shape and 
color to it. Adventure is n’t in the quick fist and 
the nimble foot; it ’s in the hungry heart and the 
itching mind. Is n’t it myself that knows, that 
was a wild and wilful girl, and went out into the 
world for more nor twenty years, and came back 
the like of an old bitch fox, harried by hunting, 
and looking for and mindful of the burrow where 
she was thrown? ... As we’re made, we’re 


DANCING TOWN 


19 


made, wee fellow; you’re either a salmon that 
hungers for the sea, or a cunning old trout that 
kens its own pool and is content . . . Adven- 
tures I Hech aye !” 

“Well, I hope your eyes get better, cummer. 
I do so.” 

“I know you mean it, Shaneen Beg, and maybe 
your wish will help them, maybe it will.” 

“Well, I ’ll be going on my way, Bridget Roe.” 

“And I ’ll be finishing mines, wee Shane Camp- 
bell. And I hope to my God you ’re better off 
at the end nor me — me that once talked to earls 
and barons, and now clucks to a wheen o’ hens; 
me that once had my coach and pair, and now 
have only an ass with a creel o’ turf; and no care 
of money once on me, and now all I have is my 
spinning-wheel, and the flax not what it used to 
be, but getting coarser. And my eyes going out, 
that were the delight of many ... I hope you ’re 
better off nor me at the end of the hard and dusty 
road, wee Shane. I hope to my God so . . 


§ 4 

He thought hard of what the cummer of Cus- 
hendhu had said about his family, and he on the 


20 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


last leg of the mountain. That he was his 
father’s son puzzled him more than that he was 
his uncles’ nephew, for there was little mention 
of his father in the house. At the dead man’s 
name his prim Huguenot mother from Nantes 
pursed her mouth, and in her presence even his 
uncles were uncomfortable, those great, gallant 
men. All he knew was that his father, Colquitto 
Campbell, had been a great Gaelic poet, and that 
his father and mother had not quite been good 
friends. Once his Uncle Robin had stopped be- 
fore a ballad-singer in Ballycastle when the man 
was striking up a tune : 

On the deck of this lonely ship to America bound, 

A husk in my throat and a mist of tears in my eyes — 

His Uncle Robin had given the man a guinea. 

“Why for did you give the singing man a gol- 
den piece. Uncle Robin?” 

“For the sake of an old song, laddie, an old 
and sad song . . . A song your father made . . . 
It was like seeing his ghost . . 

“But my father. Uncle Robin — ” 

“Your father was the heart of corn, wee Shane, 
for all they say against him ... I never knew 
a higher, cleaner heart, but he was easy discour- 
ag ’t . . . Aye, easy thrown down and easy led 
away ... I was fond of him . , . Am . . . 


DANCING TOWN 


21 


always, and no matter . . . However . . . shall 
we go and see the racing boats, wee fellow?” 

And that was all he ever got from Uncle Robin. 
But he knew some of his father’s songs that were 
sung in the country-side . . . 

Is truagh, a ghradh, gan me agas thu im Bla chliath! 
No air an traigh hhain an ait nach robh duine riamh, 
Seachd oidhche, seachd la, gan tamh, gan chodal, gan 
bhiadh, 

Ach thusa bhi *m ghraidh's lomh geal thardam gu 
fial! 

“O God ! my loved one, that you and I were in 
Dublin town! Or on a white strand, where no 
foot ever touched before. Day in, night in, with- 
out food or sleep, what mattered it? But you 
to be loving me and your white arm around me 
so generously!” 

He could n’t understand the song, though the 
lilt of the words captured him. What should 
people accept being without food or sleep? And 
what good was a white arm generously around 
one ? However, that was love, and it was a mys- 
tery . . . But that song could not have been to 
his mother. He could not imagine her being 
generous with even a white arm. And none 
would want to be with her on a strand without 
food or sleep; that he instinctively felt. She was 
a high, proud cliff, stern and proud and beauti- 


22 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


ful, and that song was a song of May-time and 
the green rushes . . . 

And other songs of his father’s were sung: 
“Maidne Fhoghmhair — Autumn Mornings,” and 
“In Uir-chill an Chreagain — In the Green 
Graveyard of Creggan . . 

A queer thing that all that should be left of 
his father was a chill silence and a song a man 
might raise at the rising of the moon . . . 

Silent he was in his grave, dumb as a stone, 
and all his uncles were silent, too, barring the 
little smile at the corners of their mouths, that 
was but the murmuring of the soul . . . There 
were paintings of them all and they young in the 
house, their high heads, their hawks’ eyes, Alan 
and Robin and Mungo . . . And Mungo, too, 
was dead with Wellington in the Peninsula. He 
and three of his men were all left of the Antrim 
company. “Christ! have I 'ost this fight, too?” 
He laughed and a French ball took him in the 
gullet. “Be damned to that!’’ He coughed. 
“He might have got me in a cleaner place !” And 
that was the end of Mungo . . . 

And Alan had gone with Sir John Franklin to 
the polar seas, and come back with the twisted 
grin. “ ’T was a grand thing you did, Alan, to 
live through and come back from the wasted 
lands.” “ ’T was a grand thing they did, to find 


DANCING TOWN 


23 


the channel o’ trade. But me, I went to find the 
north pole, with the white bear by the side of it, 
like you see in the story-hooks. And I never got 
within the length of Ireland o’ ’t! Trade, aye; 
but what ’s trade to me? It ’s a unco place, the 
world!” 

His father he could imagine: “Poor Colquitto 
Campbell I He wanted to bark like an eagle, and 
he made a wee sweet sound, like a canary-bird! 
Ah, well, give the bottle the sunwise turn, man o’ 
the house, and come closer to me, a hheilin tana 
nan hpog, O slender mouth of the kisses !” His 
father, wee Shane thought, must have worn the 
twisted grin, too. 

He knew what the twisted grin meant. It 
meant defeat. He had seen it on his Uncle 
Alan’s face when he lost the championship of 
Ireland on the golf links of Portrush. And 
that morning he had been so confident! “ ’T is 
the grand golf I ’ll play the day, and the life tin- 
gling in my finger-tips!” And great golf he did 
play, with his ripping passionate shots, but a 
thirty-foot putt on the home green beat him. 
All through the match his face had been dour, but 
now came the outstretched hand and the smile 
at the corner of the mouth : 

“Congratulations, sir! ’T is yourself has the 
grand eye for the hard putt on the tricky green!” 


24 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


The wee grin meant that lilan had been 
beaten. 

And Uncle Robin, too, the wisest and oldest of 
them all, who had been to Arabia and had been 
all through Europe and was Goethe’s friend, he 
had the twisted grin of the beaten man. Only 
occasionally you could get past the grin of Uncle 
Robin, as he had gotten past it the day Uncle 
Robin had spoken of his brother, Shane’s father. 
And sometimes when a great hush was on the 
mountains and the Moyle was silent. Uncle 
Robin would murmer a verse of his great poet 
friend’s : 

Uber alien Gipfeln 
1st Ruh, 

In alien Wipfeln 
Spiirest du 
Kaum einen Hauch; 

Die Vdgelein schweigen im Walde. 

Warte nur, balde 
Ruhest du auch. 

The sharp u’s and heavy gutturals were so like 
Gaidhlig, it seemed queer wee Shane could not 
understand the poem; but Uncle Robin trans- 
lated it into Gaidhlig: 

Os cionn na morbheanna 
Ta sith — 


DANCING TOWN 


25 


And the melody of it was like the plucking of 
a harper’s strings. So much in so little, and 
every note counted, and the last line like a dim 
quaint bar: 

Beidh sith agad fein! “You will rest, too!” 

• A queer thing, the men who were beaten and 
smiled. A queer thing the men who, beaten, were 
more gallant than the winners. A queer thing for 
the cummer of Cushendhu to say, she who was so 
wise after the hot foolishness of youth, that he 
was his uncles’ nephew and his father’s son. A 
queer thing that. A queer, dark, and secret 
thing. 


§ 5 

The memory of his Uncle Robin stuck in his 
mind and he going up the mountain. His Uncle 
Robin knew all there was to be known in the 
world, the immense learned man. When he 
was spoken to of anything strange, he had always 
an explanation for it. When the mirage off Port- 
rush was mentioned, he could talk at length of 
strange African mirages that the travelers see 
in the desert at the close of day, oases and palm- 
trees and minaiets, so you would think you were 


26 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


near to a towii or a green pasture and you miles 
and miles away. And there was a sight to be 
seen off Sicily that the ignorant Italian people 
thought was the work of Morgan le Fay. And 
in the Alps was a horror men spoke of and called 
the Specter of the Brocken. 

All these strange occurrences were as simple as 
the alphabet to Uncle Robin. He would explain 
it as a sight reflected on the cloud and thrown 
on a sea of mist or a desert as on a screen, 
using difficult words, like “refraction,” and words 
from Euclid, like “angles.” But Uncle Alan 
would object. Uncle Alan mistrusting difficult 
words and words from Euclid. Alan would raise 
his head from splicing a fishing-rod or cleaning 
the lock of a gun or polishing a snaffle : 

“You were ay the one for explanations, Robin. 
Maybe you Ve got an explanation for the gift?” 
By the gift Uncle Alan meant the second sight. 

“Ah, sure; ’t is only mind reading and sym- 
pathy.” 

“O my God! Now listen, Robin. You ken 
when you dragged me from the horse-show 
the last time we were in Dublin, to the li- 
brary of the What-you-may-call-him — ^Archaeo- 
logical Society or so’ thin’. You ken the 
book you showed me about Antrim, and what 
was seen off the cliffs one time. There was 


DANCING TOWN 


27 


a great black arm in the air, and a hand 
to the wrist of it, and to the shoulder a 
crosspiece with a ring, like one end of an an- 
chor. And that disappeared. And then imme- 
diately there showed a ship, with the masts and 
sails and tackles and men, and it sailed stern 
foremost and it sank stern foremost, all in 
the red sky. And then there was a fort 
with a castle on the top of it and there 
were fire and smoke coming out of it, as if a 
grand fight was on. And the fort divided into 
two ships, that chased each other, and then sank. 
Then there was a chariot with two horses, and 
chasing that was a strange thing like a serpent, a 
snake’s head at one end, and a bulk at the other 
like a snail’s house. And it gained on the chariot 
and gave it a blow. And out of the chariot came 
a bull, and after it came a dog, and the bull and 
the dog fought as in a gaming-pit. And then 
suddenly all was clear, no cloud or mist or any- 
thing in the northern air. Am I right or am n’t 
I? Wasn’t that in the book, Robin More?” 

‘It was.” 

“And now, Robin, my man, was n’t that signed 
by respectable people: Mr. Allye, a minister, and 
a Lieutenant Dunsterville and a Lieutenant Dwine 
and Mr. Bates and twelve others, all of whom 
saw it near or around the time of the Boyne 


28 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


Water? Wasn’t it signed by the decent 
people?” 

“It was.” 

“And what explanation have you got for 
that, you and your master of arts of Trinity 
College!” 

“They were daft — gone in the head. Daft or 
drunk.” 

“My song! And maybe John was daft when 
he saw the vision of Patmos !” 

“I would no’ be surprised.” 

“Na, Robin More; you would not be surprised 
if you saw a trout that cantered or a horse that 
flew. You ’d have an explanation. You ’re the 
queer hard man to live with, Robin, with your 
explanations.” 

Willie John Boyd, the servant boy, removed 
his cutty pipe and hazarded a suggestion. 

“Queer things happened in the auld days.” 

“If there were queerer things nor you in the 
auld days,” Alan laughed, “it must have been like 
a circus.” 

But mightn’t they both be right? wee Shane 
thought, and he trudging up the mountain-side. 
His Uncle Alan knew an awful lot. There was 
none could coax a trout from a glass-clear pool 
with a dry fly like Alan Campbell. He knew the 
weather, when it would storm and when it would 


DANCING TOWN 


29 


clear, and from what point the wind would blow 
to-morrow. He could nurse along the difficult 
flax and knew the lair of the otter and had a great 
eye for hunting fox and a better eye for a horse 
than a Gipsy. Might there not be things in 
nature, as he said, that none knew of? And 
might n’t there be explanations for them, as Uncle 
Robin, who had read every book, claimed there 
were? Mightn’t they both be right, who 
thought each other wrong, and they arguing by 
the red fire, fighting and snarling like dogs and 
loving each other with the strange soft love of 
lovers when the trees are a-rustle and the moon 
high? 


§ 6 

He had thought to come up to the top of the 
mountain where the cairn was, and the dark and 
deepest lake, and to sit down in the heather and 
wait half an hour maybe while the curlew called, 
and then have Dancing Town take form and color 
before his eyes, hold it until every detail was 
visible, and then fade gently out as twilight fades 
into night. He had thought to be prepared and 
receptive. 


30 


THE WIHD BLOWETH 


But suddenly it was upon him, in the air, over 
the waters of Moyle . . . 

A sweep of fear ran over him, and he grew 
cold, so strange it was, so against nature. Clear 
and high, as in some old print, and white and 
green, the town and shore came to him. The 
May afternoon was in it, hot and golden, but the 
town itself was in morning sunlight. A clutter 
of great houses and little houses, all white, a great 
church, and a squat dun fort, and about it and 
in it were green spaces and palm-trees that swayed 
to a ghostly breeze. And the green ran down 
to a white beach, and on the beach foamy waves 
curled like a man’s beard. And in the air the 
town quivered and danced, as imaged trees seem 
to dance on running water . . . 

On one side was Ireland, and on one side was 
Scotland, and high in the air between them was 
Dancing Town . . . 

No one was in the streets that wee Shane could 
see, and yet the town was lifeful, some tropical 
city where the green jalousies were closed in the 
heat of the midday sun, and where no one was 
on the streets, barring some unseen old beggar 
or peddling woman drowsing in the shade. The 
town was sleeping not with the sleep of Scotland, 
that is the sleep of dead majestic, melancholy 
kings, nor with the sleep of Ireland, that is tired 


DANCING TOWN 


31 


and harassed and old. It was not as lonely as 
sleeping lakes are where the bittern booms like a 
drum ... It slept as a child sleeps, lips apart and 
chubby fingers uncurled, and happy . . . And all 
the time it quivered in the clear air . . . 

In the morning, wee Shane thought, it woke to 
bright happiness, the green parrakeets chattered, 
the monkeys whistled, the lizards basked in the 
sun. And the generation of the town came out 
and gossiped and worked merrily, until the heat 
of the sun began to strike with the strokes of a 
mallet, and then they went into the cool, dark 
houses and slept as children sleep. And then 
came blue twilight, and lamps were lit in the green 
spaces, and into the odorous night would come 
the golden rounded women with smiles like honey, 
and the graceful feline men ... A woman’s 
laughter, a man’s song . . . And the moon ris- 
ing on tropic seas, while a guitar hummed with 
a deep vibrant note . . . And the perfume of 
strange tropic trees . . . 

But meantime the town danced in the clear air 
. . . And — 

“It ’s gone!” said wee Shane. 

One moment it was there, and the next there 
were only Ireland and Scotland and the waters 
of Moyle, and a ship going drowsily for the 
Clyde. 


32 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


And for a long time he waited, thinking Danc- 
ing Town might come again. But it did not 
come. The schooner off the Mull lay over, and 
the Moyle awoke. A breeze rambled up the 
mountain, and the heather tinkled its strange 
dry tinkle. And afar off a curlew called, and a 
grouse crowed in defiance. 

The moment of magic was by, and wee Shane 
went down the mountain. 


§ 7 

As he went down the mountain he tried to 
puzzle out the why and wherefore of Dancing 
Town. 

Of course there were things you could not ex- 
plain, like the banshee; or the Naked Hangman, 
who strides through the valleys on midsummer’s 
eve with his gallows under his arm; or the Death 
Coach, with its headless horses and its headless 
driver. There was no use bringing these matters 
up to Uncle Robin. Uncle Robin would only 
laugh and shout: “Havers, bairn! Wha ’s been 
filling your wee head with nonsense?” But you 
could no more deny their existence than you could 
that of Apollyon, whom you reacf about in “Pil- 


DANCING TOWN 


33 


grim’s Progress,” and who wandered up and 
down the world and to and fro in it; or of the 
fairies, whose sweet little piping many heard at 
night as they passed the forts of the little people; 
or of the tiny cobbling leprechawns, who knew 
where the Danes had hid their store of gold in 
crocks such as hold butter ... Of these there 
was no explanation but the Act of God. And 
Uncle Robin was queer. He put no store in the 
Act of God. 

Now, if it had been an angel he had seen in the 
high air, it would have been the Act — or the 
banshee, and her crooning and keening by the 
riverside, with her white cloak, her red, burnished 
hair . . . But it was an island he had seen, a 
dancing town, with his own hard wee Scots-Irish 
eyes. And that was not an Act of God; it was 
a fact, and so outside his Uncle Alan’s bailiwick 
and within his Uncle Robin’s. His Uncle Robin 
would say it was the reflected image of some 
place in the world. Aye, he ’d take his Uncle 
Robin’s word for that. But where was it? 
Surely, as yet, it was undiscovered. It had the 
quiet of a June evening, that land had, and a 
grand shimmering beauty . . . And if it was 
known where it was, would n’t the mountainy folk 
be leaving their cabins, and the strong farmers 
their plowed lands, and the whining tinkers be 


34 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


hoofing the road for it? If it was known where 
that land was . . . 

It occurred to him it must have been that land 
his father meant and he writing his poem of the 
Green Graveyard of Creggan. While he was 
sleeping under the weeping yew-trees the young 
queen had touched the sleeping poet on the 
shoulder. 

shiolaigh charthannaigh” she said, “O 
kindly kinsman, na caithtear thusa ins na nealtaihh 
broin, let you not be thrown under the clouds of 
sorrow! Acht eirigh in do sheasamh, but rise in 
your standing, agas gluais liomsa siar ' sa* rod, and 
travel with me westward in the road. Go Tir 
Dheas na Meala, to the shimmering land of honey 
where the foreigner has not the sway. And you 
will find pleasantry in white halls persuading me 
to the strains of music.” 

Surely his father, too, had seen Dancing Town! 

And it was an old story that Oisin had found 
it, when he rode with the princess over the waves 
on a white horse whose hoofs never touched 
water, and he abode with her in Tir nan Og, in 
the Land of Them Who are Young, for a thou- 
sand years or more, until the great homesickness 
for Ireland took him, that takes the strongest, 
and he came for a visit on the white horse; but 
the girths of the saddle broke, and he fell to the 


DANCING TOWN 


35 


ground, and the horse flew away. And he who 
had been strong and young and beautiful became 
old and bald and blind, and Patrick of the Bells 
and Crosses took him, and put him with the groan- 
ing penitents, who beat their breasts under the 
fear of hell. And he, who had known Tir nan 
Og and the Silver Woman, was a drooling ancient 
with a wee lad to lead him . . . But that was 
just a winter’s tale with no sense to it. 

But there were other things in books that had 
the ring of truth to them. There was the voy- 
age of Maeldun, who had set out in his coracle, 
and visited strange islands. The Island of Huge 
Ants was one, and wee Shane had seen in his geog- 
raphy book pictures of armadillos, and he 
shrewdly surmised that Maeldun had been to 
South America. And there was the Island of 
Red-Hot Animals, but that was a poser. Still 
and all, the rhinoceros had armor like an old 
knight’s, and that would surely get red-hot under 
the suns of the equator. It would explain, too, 
why the rhinoceros favored the water, like a cow 
in July . . . Sure that was it: Maeldun had 
been to Africa. And Maeldun, too, had found 
the Fortunate Isle. Brendan, too, had known it. 
Was n’t it in old charts — St. Brendan’s Isle? 
He said he found it, and surely a saint of God 
would n’t lie . . . 


36 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


Och, it was there somewhere, but people were 
different from what they were in the ancient days. 
They did n’t bother. If they had told his father 
about it, sure all Colquitto would have done was 
to call for pen and paper. 

bhron air an fhairrge/^ he would have 
written: “My grief on the sea — how it comes 
between me and the land where my mind might 
be easy — ” And then he ’d have lain back and 
chanted it. “ ^Avourneen^ did you ever in all your 
life hear a poem as good as my poem? Sure old 
Homer ’s jealous in the black clouds. Was there 
ever a Greek poet the equal of a Gaelic one? 
Anois, teacht an Earraigh — now the moment 
spring comes in, ’t is I will hoist sail, inneosad mo 
sheol . . 

And Alan Donn might have started to find it, 
but at the first golf links he ’d stop, “to take the 
conceit out of the local people, and to give them 
something to talk of, and they old men,” or to 
match his coursing greyhound against any dog in 
the world for a ten-pound note, or to deluther 
‘some red-cheeked likely woman . . . 

And Uncle Robin might hear of it, and he ’d 
sit down and write a book, saying where it prob- 
ably was, and how you might get there, and what 
the people were like, and whom they v/ere pro- 


DANCING TOWN 


37 


bably descended from . . . And the book would 
be in all the libraries of the world, and people 
would be writing him telling him what a great 
head was on him, and he ’d mutter: “Nonsense! 
Nonsense! All nonsense!” and stroke his great 
red beard . . . 

But would n’t it be the funny thing, the queer 
and funny thing, if he himself, wee Shane Camp- 
bell, were to go out and discover that island, 
and to own it, and to have it marked in the maps 
and charts, “Wee Shane Campbell’s Island,” for 
all to read and see? . . . 

“Decent wee fellow, is it about here somewhere 
the house of the McFees?” 

Shane had turned into the main road that ran 
along the sea-shore on the way homeward when 
the voice hailed him. It was a great black- 
bearded man, sitting on the ditch, holding his 
shoes in his hand. His face was tanned to ma- 
hogany, and in his ears were little gold rings. 
He wore clothes that were obviously new, obvi- 
ously uncomfortable. 

“If you keep on the road about a half a mile 
and then turn to the left, and keep on there until 
you come to a loaning near a well with a haw- 
thorn-bush couching over it, and turn to the left 
down that loaning, you ’ll come to it. It ’s a wee 


38 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


thatched house, needing a coat of whitewash. 
It ’s got a byre with a slate roof, and a rowan- 
tree near it. You canna’ miss it.” 

“Now is n’t that the queer thing,” the big man 
said, “me that thought I knew every art and part 
of this country, and that could find my way in the 
dark from Java Head to Poplar Parish, can’t re- 
member the place where I was born and reared? 
Forty years of traveling on the main ocean and 
thinking long for this place, and now when I come 
back I know no more about it than a fish does of 
dry land.” He stood up painfully. “And me 
that thought I would come back leaping like a 
hare am now killed entirely with the soreness of 
my feet.” 

“You ’re not accustomed to walking, then, 
honest man?” 

“ ’Deed, and you may say I ’m not, decent wee 
fellow. I’m a sailorman, and aboard ship 
there ’s very little use for the feet. You ’ve got 
to be quick as a fish with the hands, and have 
great strength in the arms of you. And you 
must have toes to grip, and thighs to brace you 
against the heeling timbers. But to be walking 
somewhere for long, hitting the road with your 
feet like you ’d be hitting a wall with your head, 
it ’s unnatural to a sailing man. A half a mile, 
did you say?” 


DANCING TOWN 


39 


“Honest man,” said wee Shane, troubled, “are 
you looking for any one in the house of the Mc- 
Fees?” 

“For a woman that bore me and put me to her 
breast. An old woman now, decent wee fellow.” 

“You ’ll no’ find her, honest man.” 

“She’s dead?” 

“I saw her with the pennies on her eyes not 
two months gone.” 

“So my mother ’s dead,” said the big man. 
“So my mother ’s dead. Ah, well, all her 
troubles are over. It ’s forty years since I saw 
her, and she the strapping woman. And in forty 
years she must have had a power of trouble.” 

“She looked unco peaceful, honest man.” 

“The dead are always peaceful, decent wee 
fellow. So my mother ’s dead. Well, that alters 
things.” 

“You ’ll be staying at home then, honest man?” 

“I ’ll be going back to sea, decent wee fellow. 
I had intended to stay at home and be with the 
old woman in her last days, the like of a pilot that 
brings a ship in, as you might say. But it would 
have been queer and hard. • Herself, now, had no 
word of English?” 

“Old Annapla McFee spoke only the Gaidh- 

lig.” 

“And the Gaidhlig is gone from me, as the 


40 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


flower goes from the fruit-tree. And there 
could have been little conversation betwixt us, 
she remembering fairs and dances and patterns 
in the Gaidhlig, and me thinking of strange 
foreign ports in the English tongue. Poor com- 
pany I ’d have been for an old woman and she 
making her last mooring. I ’d have been little 
assistance. Forty years between us — strange 
ports and deep soundings. Oh, we ’d have been 
making strange.” 

“Ah, maybe not, honest man.” 

“How could it have been any other way, decent 
wee lad? She’d have been the strange, pitiful 
old cummer to me, who minded her the strapping 
woman, and I ’d have been a queer bearded man 
to her, who minded me only as a wee fellow, 
the terror of the glen. People change every day, 
and there ’s a lot of change in forty years. 

“And, besides, it would have been gey hard on 
me, wee lad. The grape and spade would be 
clumsy to my hands, there being no life to them 
after the swinging spars. And my fingers, used 
to splicing rope, would not have the touch for 
milking a cow. And I ’d feel lost, wee fellow, 
some day and me plowing a field, to see a fine 
ship on the waters, out of Glasgow port for the 
Plate maybe, and to think of it off the Brazils, and 
the pampero coming quick as a thrown knife. 


DANCING TOWN 


41 


and me not aboard to help shorten sail or take 
a trick at the wheel. And it might have made 
me ugly toward the old woman. And I 
would n’t have had that at all, at all. . . . But 
she ’s finished the voyage, poor cummer . . . 
And it ’s a high ship and a capstan shanty for 
me again ... all ’s well . . .” 

“It ’s a wonder, honest man, you would n’t 
stay on land at peace and you forty years at sea.” 

“Well, it ’s a queer thing, decent wee fellow, 
but once you get the salt water in your blood 
you ’re gone. A queer itching is in your veins. 
It ’s like a disease. It is so. It spoils you for 
the fire on winter nights and for the hay-fields 
in the month o’ June. And it puts a great bar 
between you and the folk o’ dry land, such as there 
is between a fighting man and a cowardly fellow. 
It ’s the salt in the blood, I think; but you ’d have 
to ask a doctor about that. 

“I ’m not saying it ’s a good life. It ’s a dog’s 
life. It is so. And when you ’re at sea you say: 
‘Was n’t I the fool to ever leave dry land; and if I 
get back and get a job,’ says you, ‘you ’ll never see 
me leave it again. It ’s a wee farm for me,’ 
you ’ll say. And then somehow you ’ll find your- 
self back aboard ship. And you ’ll be off the Horn, 
up aloft, fighting a sail like you ’d fight a man 
for your life, or you ’ll be in the horse latitudes, 


42 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


as they call them, and no breeze stirring, and not 
a damned thing to do but holystone decks, the 
like of an old pauper that does be scrubbing a 
poorhouse floor. And you say: ‘Sure I ’d rather 
be a tinker traveling the roads, with his ass and 
cart and dog and woman, nor a galley-slave to 
this bastard of a mate that has no more feeling 
for a poor sailorman nor a hound has for a rab- 
bit. It ’s a dog’s life,’ you say, ‘and when we 
make port I ’m finished.’ 

“But you make port and you stay awhile, and 
you find that the woman you ’ve been thinking of 
as Queen of Sheba is no more nor a common drab. 
And the publican you thought of as the grand 
generous fellow has no more use for you and your 
bit silver gone. It ’s a queer thing, but they on 
land think of nothing but money. And one day 
you think, and the woman beside you is pastier 
nor dough, and the man of the public house is no 
more nor a cheap trickster, and you ’re listening 
to the conversation of the timid urban people, 
and the house you ’re in is filthier nor a pig’s sty. 
And you say: ‘Is this me that minds the golden 
women of the islands, and they with red flowers 
in their hair? Is this me that fought side by 
side with good ship-mates in Callao? Am I 
listening to the chatter of these mild people, me 


DANCING TOWN 


43 


that ’s heard grand stories in the forecastle of 
how this man was marooned in the Bahamas, and 
that man was married to a Maori queen, by God? 
Me, the hero that dowsed skysails, and they 
cracking like guns. Is this lousy room a place 
for me that ’s used to a ship as clean as a cat from 
stem to stern?’ And you stand up bravely, and 
you look the man of the public house square in 
the shifty eyes, and you say: ‘Listen, bastard I 
Do you ken e’er a master wants a sailing man? 
A sailor as knows his trade, crafty in trouble, and 
a wildcat in danger, and as peaceful as a hare in 
the long grass?’ And you’re off again on the 
old trade and the old road, where the next port is 
the best port, and the morrow is a braver day. 

. . . So it ’s so long, decent wee fellow ! I ’m 
off on it again. It ’s a dog’s life, that ’s what it 
is, the life of a sailing man. But you could n’t 
change. I suppose it ’s the salt in the blood.” 

“You’re off, honest man?” 

“Aye, I ’m off, wee fellow. And thank you 
kindly for what you told me, and for telling me 
especially the old woman looked so peaceful and 
her with the pennies on her eyes.” 

“But aren’t you going up to see the house?” 

“I don’t think I will, wee lad. I ’ve had a pic- 
ture in my mind for forty years of the big house 


44 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


was in it, and the coolth of the well. And 
maybe it is n’t so at all. I ’d rather not know 
the difference. I ’ll keep my picture.” 

“But the house is yours,” wee Shane urged 
him. “You ’re not going to leave it as it is. 
Are n’t you going to sell it and take the money?” 

“Och, to hell with that ! I ’ve no time,” said 
the sailing man, and he limped painfully back 
down the road. 


§ 8 

His Uncle Robin had gone off to discuss with 
some Belfast crony the strange things he used to 
discuss, like the origin of the Round Tower 
of Ireland or the cryptic dialect of the Gaelic 
masons or whether the Scots came to Scotland 
from Ireland or to Ireland from Scotland, all 
very important for a member of the Royal Irish 
Academy. And his mother had gone off shop- 
ping to buy linen for the house at Cushendhu, pop- 
lin for dresses, delft from Holland for the 
kitchen and glass from Waterford for the side- 
board in the dining-room. And because he was 
to go to the boarding-school that night and there- 


DANCING TOWN 


45 


after would be harsh discipline, and because his 
Uncle Robin had known he was on the point of 
crying, he had been allowed to wander around 
Belfast by himself for a few hours with a silver 
shilling in his pocket. And wee Shane had made 
for the quays . . . 

The four of them had sat in a cold, precise 
room that morning, his Uncle Robin, his mother, 
wee Shane, and the principal, a fat, gray-eyed, in- 
sincere Southerner, with a belly like a Chinese 
god’s, dewlaps like a hunting hound’s, cold, 
stubby, and very clean hands, and a gown that 
gave him a grotesque dignity. And he had eyed 
wee Shane unctuously. And wee Shane did not 
like fat, unctuous men. He liked them lean and 
active, as glensmen are. 

And the principal had spoken in stilted French 
to his mother, who had responded in French that 
cracked like a whip. And the principal had 
licked the ground before Uncle Robin. It was 
“Yes, Dr. Campbell!” And, “No, Dr. Camp- 
bell!” where the meanest glensman would have 
said “Aye, maybe you ’re right, Robin More,” 
or, “Na, na, you ’re out there, Robin Campbell.” 

“The old hypocrite!” It was the only word 
wee Shane could describe the master by, a favorite 
word of his Uncle Alan’s. 


46 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


And in the corridors he had met some of the 
scholars, white-faced fellows; and the masters — 
they had mean eyes, like the eyes of badgers. 

“I dinna want to go !” He blurted out on the 
quays of Belfast. 

“Where dinna you want to go, wee laddie?’* 
A black, curly-headed man with gray eyes and a 
laugh like a girl’s stopped short. He had blue 
clothes and brass buttons and stepped lightly as a 
cat. 

“I dinna want to go to school.” 

“Sure, all wee caddies go to school.” 

“I ken that. But I don’t want to go to school 
with a bunch of whey-faced gets, and masters 
lean and mean as rats, and a principal puffed out 
like a setting hen.” 

“Oh, for God’s sake ! is that the way you feel 
about it? Laddie, you don’t talk like a towns- 
man. Where are you from?” 

“I ’m from the Glens of Antrim. From Cush- 
endhu.” 

“I ’m a Raghery man myself. Tha an Gaidh- 
lig a gad? 

go direach!** 

“So you ’ve got the Gaidhlig too? Who are 
your people, wee laddie?” 

“I ’m a Campbell of Cushendhu.” 

“For God’s sake ! you ’re no’ a relation of Alan 


DANCING TOWN 


47 


CampbelFs, wha sailed with Sir John Franklin 
for the pole?” 

“I ’m his nephew.” 

“I Ve sailed under your Uncle Alan. He ’s 
the heart o’ corn. And so they ’re going to make 
a scholar out of you, like your Uncle Robin. Oh, 
well, oh, well. Would you like to come around 
with me and see the ships?” 

“I ’d like fine to see the ships.” 

‘‘You ’ll see all manner of ships here. Square- 
riggers, fore-and-afters, hermaphrodites. You ’ll 
see Indiamen and packets from Boston. You’ll 
see ships that do be going to Germany, and 
some for the Mediterranean ports. You ’ll see 
a whaler that’s put in for repairs. You’ll see 
fighting ships. You ’ll see fishers of the Dogger 
Banks, and boats that go to Newfoundland, where 
the cod do feed. All manner of sloops and 
schooners, barkantines and brigs, but the bonniest 
of them all lies off Carrickfergus.” 

“And who ’s she, Raghery man?” 

“The Antrim Maid is her nomination.” 

“And do you sail her?” 

“I sail in her, laddie. Sail and sail in her. 
Mine from truck to keelson she is, and I’m 
master of her. Father and mother and brother 
to her, and husband, too. I ’m proud of her.” 
The Rathliner laughed. “You may notice.” 


48 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


“And why for should n’t you be ? She must be 
the grand boat surely, man who sailed with my 
Uncle Alan.” 


§9 

“Raghery man, you who ’ve sailed the high 
seas and the low seas, did you ever put into an 
island that has great coolth to it and great sun. 
shine, a town quiet as a mouse, a strip of sand 
like silver, the waves turning with a curl and 
chime?” 

“Where did you hear tell of that island, wee 
laddie? Was it in the books you do be reading 
at school?” 

“I saw it, and it dancing in the sun. From 
Slievenambanderg I saw it, and it over the waters 
of Moyle.” 

The Rathliner sat on a mooring bitt on the 
quay and filled his pipe. 

“I ken that island,” he said. “I ken it well.” 

“And what name is on it, Raghery man?” 

“The name that ’s on it is Fiddlers’ Green.” 

“Were you ever there, Raghery man?” There 
was a sinking in wee Shane’s heart. 

“I was never there, laddie, never there. Often- 


DANCING TOWN 


49 


times I thought I ’d raised it, but it was never 
there, wee laddie, never there. There ’s men as 
says they Ve been there, but I could hardly be- 
lieve them, though there ’s queer things past be- 
lief on the sea. There ’s a sea called Sargasso, 
and if I told you half the things about it, you ’d 
think me daft. And there ’s the ghost of ships 
at sea, and that ’s past thinking. And there ’s 
the great serpent, that I ’ve seen with my own 
eyes . . . 

“Aye, Fiddlers’ Green! Where is it, and how 
do you get there? The sailormen would give 
all their years to know.” 

“Why for do they call it Fiddlers’ Green?” 

“It ’s Fiddlers’ Green, laddie, because it ’s the 
place you come to at the cool of the day, when 
the bats are out, and the cummers put by their 
spinning. And there ’s nou’t there but sport 
and music. A lawn like a golf green, drink that 
is not ugly, women would wander with you on to 
the heather when the moon’s rising, and never a 
thought in their mind of the money in your pocket, 
but their eyes melting at you, and they thinking 
you ’re the champion hero of the world . . . 
And all the fiddlers fiddling the finest of dance 
music: hornpipes like ‘The Birds among the 
Trees’ and ‘The Green Fields of America’ ; reels 
like ‘The Swallow-tail Coat’ and ‘The Wind that 


50 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


Shakes the Barley’ ; slip-jigs would make a cripple 
agile as a hare . . . And you go asleep with no 
mate to wake you in a blow, but the sound of an 
old piper crooning to you as a cummer croons. 
And the birds will wake you with their douce 
singing . . . Aye, Fiddlers’ Green . . 

And they were silent for a minute in the soft 
Ulster sunshine. 

“Would you have any use for a lad like myself 
aboard your ship, Raghery man?” 

“Och, sure, what would you do with the sea, 
wee fellow?” 

“I ken it well already, Raghery man. And 
I ’m no clumsy in a boat. I can sail a sloop with 
any man. On a reach or full and by, I ’ll keep 
her there. With the breeze biting her weather 
bow, I ’ll hold her snout into it. Or with the 
wind behind me, I ’ll ride her like you ’d canter 
a horse.” 

“I might take you to learn you seamanship 
and navigation, but you ’d be no use as a sailor, 
wee laddie, and it ’s not for a Campbell to be a 
cabin-boy.” 

“Take me to learn the trade, then. Take me 
now.” 

“I ’d like fine, wee fellow, but I could n’t do it. 
You might be cut out for a scholar for all you 
think you ’re not. Or it might be a soldier you ’re 


DANCING TOWN 


51 


meant for. I couldn’t interfere with your life. 
It ’s an unco responsibility, interfering with a 
destiny, a terrible thing.” 

“Will you talk to my Uncle Robin? Will 
you ?” 

“Och, now, how could I talk to your Uncle 
Robin, him that ’s written books, and is counted 
one of the seven learned men of Ireland? Sure, 
I would n ’t understand what he ’d be saying, and 
he ’d have no ear for a common sailing man. If 
it was your Uncle Alan, now — ” 

“There ’s not a person in the world but has 
the ear of my Uncle Robin. And there ’s none 
easier to talk to, not even the apple woman at 
the corner of the quay. Will you come with me 
and talk to him?” 

“I could n ’t, laddie. Your Uncle Alan, 
now — ” 

“I ’ll do the talking, then; but will you come?” 

“Och, wee fellow, it would be foolish.” 

“You would n’t have me think hard of a man 
of Raghery?” 

“No, I would n’t have any one think hard of 
the folk of Raghery, so I suppose I ’ll have to 
come. I don’t know what your Uncle Robin 
will say to me for putting notions in your head. 
It ’s awful foolish. But I ’ll come..” 


52 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


§ 10 

“So there ’d never be the making of a scholar in 
me, Uncle Robin. A ship on the sea or a new 
strange person would be always more to me 
nor a book. I can read and write and figure; 
what more do I want? And, och, sir, the school 
would be a prison to me, the scholars droning 
and ink on their fingers, and the hard-faced 
masters at the desk. I ’d be woe for the outside, 
for the sunshine and the water and the bellying 
winds — ” 

His Uncle Robin tapped the window-pane of 
the club and thought hard. The Rathlin sailor 
stood by, puzzled. 

“But, chlldeen asthore, sure you don’t know 
now what you want. Your career, laddie I 
Think a bit! The church, for instance — ” 

“Och, Uncle Robin, is it me In the church that 
must say my prayers by my lee lone, so loath am I 
to let the people see what ’s in me? I ’d be the 
queer minister, dumb as a fish — ” 

“You once had a notion for the army, laddie.” 

“So I had, sir, and fine I ’d like the uniforms 
and the swords and the horses, but I would n’t 


DANCING TOWN 


53 


have the heart to kill a man, and me never seeing 
him before. If a man did me a wrong, I’d kill 
him quick as I’d wash my hands, but never seeing 
him before, I could na, I just could na — ” 

“It ’s a clean thing, the sea,” the Raghery man 
ventured. 

“He ’s so very young,” objected Uncle Robin. 

“There ’s nothing but that or the books for 
me. Uncle Robin. A sailor or a scholar — and 
I don’t think I 'd make out well with the books.” 

“The books are n’t all they ’re cracked up to 
be, wee Shane. I ’ve written books myself, and 
who reads them but a wheen of graybeards, and 
they drowsing by the fire? Knowledge, laddie, I 
have that . . . And it is n’t even wisdom. 
Knowledge is like dry twigs you collect with care 
to make a bit fire you can warm your shins at, and 
wisdom is the gift of God that ’s like the blossom 
on the gorse. I ’ve searched books and taken 
out the marrow of dead men’s brains, and after 
all, even all my knowledge may be wrong . . . 
Your father’s name will be remembered as long 
as the Gaidhlig lasts, for songs that came to him 
as easily as a woman’s kiss. And your Uncle 
Alan ’s footprints are near the pole. And 
Mungo is remembered forever because he died 
with a laugh. Not that I ’m saying anything 
against them, wee Shane; better men will never 


54 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


be seen. But Daniel Donelly’s name is remem- 
bered because he beat Cooper in a fight, and 
songs were made about it. And I ’ll be remem- 
bered only when some old librarian dusts a for- 
gotten book. And I was supposed to be the wise 
pup o’ the litter, with my books and my study. 
And all I have now is a troubled mind in my 
latter days. Aye, the books! . . .” 

“Shall I go to sea, sir?” 

“Is it up to me? And how about your mother, 
laddie?” 

“Oh, there ’s little warmth within her for me, 
sir. She ’s a bitter woman. She does na like 
my father’s breed.” 

“Are you your father’s breed through, wee 
caddie? Are you Campbell all? Here, gi’ us a 
look at your face. Aye, the eyes, the nose, the 
proud throw to the head of you. I ’m afeared 
there’s little of your mother In you, laddie; 
afeared there ’s none at all.” 

“I ’m no’ ashamed o’ my kind, sir.” 

“And you’re set on going to sea?” 

“I ’d like it fine, sir.” 

“j^nd If it does na turn out the way you 
thought It would, you ’re not going to cry or 
turn sour?” 

“I thought you knew me better nor that. Uncle 
Robin.” 


DANCING TOWN 


55 


“I do.” The big man laid his hand on the 
boy’s shoulder and smiled at the shipmaster. 
“Take him, Raghery man!” 


§ II 

Though all was wonder to wee Shane, there 
was so much of it that it flicked through 
his head like a dream: the hazy September after- 
noon; the long, lean vessel like a greyhound; the 
sails white as a swan’s wing; the cordage that 
rattled like wood; the bare-footed, bearded 
sailors; the town of Carrickfergus in the offing; 
the lap-lap-lap of water; the silent man at the 
wheel; the sudden transition of the friendly Rag- 
hery man into a firm, authoritative figure, quick 
as a cat, rapping out commands like a sergeant- 
major. 

The town of Carrickfergus began to slip by as 
if drawn by horses. The mate ran up the ladder 
of the poop. 

“Topsails, McCafferty I” the Raghery man 
ordered. 

“Topsails, sir.” 

A minute later there came the mate’s voice 
from amidships: 


56 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


“Sheet home the topsails — and put your backs 
into it!” 

Patter of feet. An accordion began to whine 
like a tinker. Creak and strain. Faster lapping 
of water. A song raised in chorus: 

As I came a-tacking down Paradise Street — 

Yo-ho! Blow the man down! 

As I came a-tacking down Paradise Street — 

Give us some time till we blow the man down! 

A trim little bumboat I chanced for to meet! 

Blow, bullies, blow the man down! 

A trim little bumboat I chanced for to meet! 

Give us some time till we blow the man down ! 

She was round in the counter and bluff in the bows! 

Yo-ho! Blow the man down! 

She was round in the counter and bluff in the bows! 
Give us some time till we blow the man down. 

Blow the man down! 

Blow, bullies! Blow the man down! 


PART TWO 


THE WAKE AT ARDEE 




THE WAKE AT ARDEE 


§ I 


HE feeling that was uppermost in him as 



1 he sat outside the thatched cottage in the 
moonlight, while the wake was within, was not 
grief at his wife’s death; not a shattered mind 
that his life, so carefully laid out not twelve 
months before, was disoriented; not any self-pity; 
not any grievance against God, such as little men 
might have : but a strange dumb wonder. There 
she lay within, in her habit of a Dominican lay 
sister, her hands waxy, her face waxy, her eyelids 
closed. And six guttering candles were about 
her, and women droned their prayers with a 
droning as of bees. There she lay with her 
hands clasped on a wooden crucifix. And no 
more would the robins wake her, and they fus- 
sing in the great hawthorn-tree over the coming 
of dawn. No longer would she rake the ash 
from the peat and blow the red of it to a little 
blaze. No longer would she beat his dog out 
of the house with the handle of the broom. No 
longer would she forgather with the neighbors 


59 


6o 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


over a pot of tea for a pleasant vindictive chat. 
No longer would she look out to sea for him 
with her half-loving, half-inimical eyes. No 
longer in her sharpish voice would she recite her 
rosary and go to bed. 

And to-morrow they would bury her— there 
would be rain to-morrow: the wind was sou’east. 
— they would lower her, gently as though she 
were alive, into a rectangular slot in the ground, 
mutter alien prayers in an alien tongue with busi- 
ness of white magic, pat the mound over as a 
child pats his castle of sand on the sea-shore, and 
leave her there in the rain. 

A month from now they would say a mass for 
her, a year from now another, but to-morrow, 
to-day, yesterday even, she was finished with all 
of life: with the fussy, excited robins of dawn; 
with the old dog that wanted to drowse by the 
fire ; with the young husband who was either too 
much or too little of a man for her; with the click- 
ing beads she would tell in her sharpish voice; 
with each thing; with everything. 

And here was the wonder of it, the strange 
dumb wonder, that the snapping of her life meant 
less in reality to him than the snapping of a stay 
aboard ship. The day after to-morrow he would 
mount the deck of Patrick Russell’s boat, and 
after a few crisp orders would set out on the 


THE WAKE AT ARDEE 


6i 


eternal sea, as though she were still alive in her 
cottage, as though indeed she had never even 
lived, and northward he would go past the purple 
Mull of Cantyre; past the Clyde, where the 
Ayrshire sloops danced like bobbins on the water; 
past the isles, where overhead drove the wedges 
of the wild swans, trumpeting as on a battle-field; 
past the Hebrides, where strange arctic birds 
whined like hurt dogs; northward still to where 
the northern lights sprang like dancers in the 
black winter nights; eastward and southward to 
where the swell of the Dogger Bank rose, where 
the fish grazed like kine. Over the great sea he 
would go as though nothing had happened, not 
even the snapping of a stay — down to the sea, 
where the crisp winds of dawn were, and the play- 
ful, stupid, short-sighted porpoises; the treacher- 
ous sliding icebergs; and the gulls that cried with 
the sea’s immense melancholy; and the great 
plum-colored whales . . . 


§ 2 

To his nostrils, sterilized as they were by the 
salt air of the sea, the rich scents of Louth came 
in a rushing profusion. The wild roses of June 


62 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


were like the high notes of a violin, and there was 
clover, and mown hay. In the southeast the 
clouds were banking, but still the moon rose high, 
and the cottage was clear as in daylight, clearer 
even in the mind’s eye — the whitewashed walls, 
the thatch like silver, the swallows’ nests beneath 
the eaves. The hard round sea-cobbles beneath 
his feet were clear and individual, and to where 
he sat in the haggard came a girl’s song from 
down the road: 

*‘Oh, Holland is a wondrous place and in it grows much 
green. 

It *s a wild inhabitation for my young love to be in. 
There the sugar-cane grows plentiful, and leaves 
on every tree, 

But the low, lowlands of Holland are between my love 
and me.” 

He listened with a cocked ear, and smiled as 
he thought how easy it would be to stroll down 
the road to where the singing girl was, and accost 
her pleasantly: “So he’s in Holland, is he? 
That ’s the queer and foolish place for him to be, 
and I here I” There would be banter, quick and 
smart as a whip, a scuffle, a clumsily placed kiss, 
laughter, another scuffle, and a kiss that found its 
mark somehow, then a saunter together down the 
scented loaning while the June moon rode high 
and the crickets sang. 


THE WAKE AT ARDEE 


63 


O my God! here he was thinking about love, 
and his wife lay inside and she dead! 

And a new light wonder sprang up and whirled 
within the big dumb wonder that was on him : that 
here was he, a lad not yet twenty-two, with a dead 
wife on his hands, while his shipmates were off 
with the laughter of young women in their ears 
after the silent and tense watches of the sea. His 
captain had gone home to Newry to where his wife 
awaited him, the tall, graceful woman with the 
hair like black silk and the black eyes and the 
black ear-rings and the slim, white, enigmatic 
hands. And the first mate had gone to Rostrevor 
with a blond, giggling girl, and the crew were at 
Sally Bishop's in Dundalk, draining the pints of 
frothy porter and making crude material love to 
Sally Bishop’s blowsy brown girls, some chucking 
their silver out with a laugh — the laugh of men 
who had fought hurricanes, and some bargaining 
shrewdly . . . But here he was, home, with his 
wife, and her dead. And if she had n’t been 
dead, she would have been half loving, half inim- 
ical toward him, her arms and bosom open, 
but a great stranger . . . He couldn’t under- 
stand. Well, she was dead, and ... he did n’t 
know . . . 

A bent, fattish figure in a shawl came toward 
him through the haggard, his wife’s mother. 


64 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


There was the sweetish, acrid odor of whisky. 

“Shane avtckj are you there all alone, mourning 
for the pleasant, beautiful one who’s gone?’’ 

“I was just sitting down.” 

“You would n’t like a wee drop of consolation?” 

“Whisky? No, thanks.” 

“Just the least taste?” 

“No, thanks.” 

“And I after bringing it out to you in a naggin 
bottle. Just the wetting of your lips, agra, 
would cheer you up, and you down to the 
ground.” 

“No I” 

The old woman sat on the stone ditch beside 
him and began swaying backward and forward, 
and the keening note came into her voice : 

“Is it gone? Is it gone you are, Moyra a 
sthoref Sure, ’t was the kindly daughter you 
were to me, and me old and not worth my salt, a 
broken cailleach hobbling on a stick. Never did 
you refuse me the cup o’ tea so strong a mouse 
could walk on it. And the butcher’s meat o’ 
Christmas, sure your old ma must have a taste, 
too. And many’s the brown egg you let me have, 
and they bringing a high price on the Wednesday 
market. And the ha’porth o’ snuff — sure you 
never came home without it, and you at Dundalk 
fair. Kindly you were as the rains of April* 


THE WAKE AT ARDEE 


65 


and my heart is ashes now you ’re gone . . 

Shane paced off through the haggard. There 
was the glug-glug of a bottle, and again the 
sweetish, acrid odor of whisky. He turned 
back. 

“Only to one were you kinder nor to myself 
and that was to the lad here, whose heart is 
broken for you. Dumb with grief he is, now 
you’re gone. And all you did for him! You 
might have married a strong farmer would have 
a dozen cows, horses would pull a cart or plow, 
hens by the dozen, and flitches of bacon hanging 
in the kitchen. Or you might have married a 
man had a shop and sat at your ease in the back 
room, like a lady born. Or you might have 
married a gager and gone to Dublin and mixed 
with the grand quality. And your mother would 
have a black silk dress, and shoes with buttons 
on them. But you married this young fellow 
goes to sea, so much was the great love on you for 
him. Love came to you like a thunder-storm, 
and left you trembling like a leaf, and now 
you’re dead — ochanee! ochanee! ochanee o!” 

Her voice changed from the shrill keen to a 
shrewd whine : 

“You ’ll be leaving me something to remember 
her by, Shane Oge, and her a fathom deep be- 
neath me in the cold ground. And a trinket or 


66 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


two, or a dress, maybe, or a bangle would keep 
my heart warm?’^ 

“You can have them all.” 

“All is it? Ah, sure, it ’s the grand big heart 
is in you, lad o’ the North. And are they all to 
be mine, the silver brooch you bought her from 
the Dutch city, and the ring with the pearl in it, 
and the dresses of silk from France, and the shoes 
that have buckles? Are they for me, hinny?” 

“Yes, yes. Take them.” 

“And the wee furnishings of the house, the 
feather-bed is soft to lie on, and the dresser with 
the delft, and the creepy stool beside the fire, 
the noble chairs? You would n’t be selling them 
to the stranger, Shane Oge?” 

“No, you can have those, too.” 

“And the house, too? Young noble fellow, 
where is your wife’s mother to lay her gray hairs? 
Could n’t you fix the house, too?” 

“The house is not mine, and I can’t afford to 
buy it.” 

“But ’t is you you are the rich Protestant family. 
Your uncles and your mother, hinny. Rotterh 
with gold they are, and me just a poor old 
cailleach that gave you the white lamb o’ the 
flock.” 

“We ’ll look after you. My uncle Alan Camp- 


THE WAKE AT ARDEE 


67 


bell will be here in a day or so and fix everything. 
But I ’m afraid the house is out of the ques- 
tion.” 

“Oh, sure it would be a noble thing to have 
the house, and they around me dying with envy 
of my state and grandeur. At fair or at wake 
great respect they would pay me, and the priests 
of God would be always calling. The house, fine 
lad, give me the house I” 

“You ’ll have to speak to my Uncle Alan.” 

“Alan Campbell is a hard Northern man.” 

“Nevertheless, you ’ll have to speak to him.” 
mhic mheirdrigheP* Her mouth hissed. 
“O son of a harlot!” 

Shane wheeled like a sloop coming about. 

“You forget I ’ve got the Gaelic myself, old 
woman.**’ 

“Oh, sure, what did I say, fine lad, but avick 
machreef son of my heart? Avick machree, I 
said. O son of my heart, that ’s what you are. 
You would n’t take wrong meaning from what an 
old woman said, and her with her teeth gone, and 
under the black clouds of sorrow 1” 

A glint in the moonlight caught Shane *s eyes. 
He gripped her right hand. 

“Is that Moyra's wedding-ring you have on? 
Did you — did you — take it — from her hand?” 


68 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


“Oh, sure, what use would she have for it, and 
she in the sods of Ballymaroo? And the grand 
Australian gold is in it, worth a mint of money. 
And what use would you have for it, and you in 
strange parts, where a passionate foreign woman 
would be giving you love, maybe? The fine lad 
you are, will draw the heart of many. But it ’s 
drawing back coldly they ’d be, and they seeing 
that on your finger, or on a ribbon around your 
neck. Drawing back they ’d be, and giving the 
love was yours to another fellow. A sin to waste 
the fine Australian gold it is. And you would n’t 
begrudge me the price of a couple o’ heifers would 
grow into grand cows? You wouldn’t, fine 
lad—” 

He flung her hand from him so savagely that 
she fell, and he went swiftly toward the house 
where the dead woman was. Back of him in 
the haggard came the glug-glug of the naggin 
bottle, and from down the loaning came the rich, 
untrained contralto of the singing girl : 

“Nor shoe nor stocking will I put on, nor comb go in my 
hair. 

And neither coal nor candlelight shine in my chamber 
fair. 

Nor will I wed with any young man until the day I die, 
Since the low lowlands of Holland are between my love 
and me.” 


THE WAKE AT ARDEE 


69 


§ 3 

As he paused at the half-door, the laughter 
and the chatter in the kitchen ceased, and he was 
aware of the blur of faces around the room, white 
faces of men and women and alien eyes. 
Over the peat fire — there was a fire even in 
June — the great black kettle sang on the crane, 
to make tea for the mourners. Here and there 
were bunches of new clay pipes scattered, and 
long rolls of twisted tobacco, for the men to 
smoke, and saucers full of snuff for both men and 
women. A great paraffin lamp threw broad, 
opaque shadows, making the whole a strange blur 
in the kitchen, while in the bedroom opening off 
it, where the tense, dead woman lay, was a glare 
of candles as from footlights, and there gathered 
the old women of the neighborhood, discussing 
everything in hushed, vindictive whispers — the 
price of cows, morbid diseases, the new wife some 
man had, and whether such a girl was with child 
. . . And the dead woman, who had loved talk 
such as this, as a drunkard loves the glass, gave 
no heed . . . Strange ! . . . And every hour or 
so they would flash to their knees, like some quick 


70 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


instinctive movement of birds, and now carelessly, 
now over-solemnly they would say a rosary for 
the dead woman’s soul : 

n-Athair, ta ar neamh — ** they would gab- 
ble. “Our Father, Who art in Heaven — ” and 
then a long suspiration: “’*5^ do bheatha, 
^Mhuire!** “Hail, Mary! Full of grace!” 

But in the kitchen they would be laughing, 
chatting, playing crude forfeits, telling grotesque 
stories, giving riddles, and now, to the muted 
sound of a melodeon, a man would dance a horn- 
pipe . . . And men would sneak out to the byre 
in twos and threes for a surreptitious glass of 
whisky . . . And suddenly they would rush in 
and join in the rosary: 

n-Athair, ta ar neamh . . . Se do 
bheatha, Mhuire! . . 

It was all so grotesque, so empty, so play-actor- 
Bke — so inharmonious with Death! Death was 
very terrible or very peaceful, thought Shane 
Campbell of the sea and the Antrim Glens. 
“Down from your horse when Death or the King 
goes by,” went the Antrim old word. But here 
the house of death was a booth of Punchi- 
nello. 

More aware even than of the indignity of it all 
was he of the hatred about him. They hated 
him for his alien race, his alien faith. Not one 


THE WAKE AT ARDEE 


71 


of the men but would have killed him had they 
had courage, because his head was high, his step 
firm. The women hated him because he had 
chosen one from among them and given her honor 
and gifts. And his wife’s mother hated him with 
the venomous, nauseous hatred that old women 
bear. And yet they ’d have loved him if he ’d 
given way to hysterical, unprofound grief, or be- 
come . . . drunk! They’d have understood 
him. But all they had for him was hatred now. 
Even the dead woman on the bed hated him . . . 
Ah, well, only a day or so more, and he ’d come 
about. A leg to leeward, and he ’d shake them 
off as a great ship leaves behind it the trouble- 
some traders’ bumboats. 

There came to him the shrill keening of the 
old woman as some one brought her toward the 
house : 

“Ochanee! Ochanee! Ochanee o! the Shep- 
herd’s lamb I She ’s gone from us I The high 
branch on the pleasant little tree! And what’s 
to become of me in my latter days! Me that 
thought I ’d have the beautiful house to live in, 
and a horse and cart, and a wake would be the 
envy of many, and not the curate, but the parish 
priest himself, to be at the head of the funeral. 
And now I ’m to be thrown against the great 
cruelty of the harsh Northern men! Nine black 


72 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


curses against them and theirs, and on my bare 
knees I say it. Och, white gull o’ the harbor, 
why did you die? Ochanee ! Ochaneel” 

The gabbled rosary, the low laughter in the 
kitchen, the clink of glasses, the howling of the 
cailleach — all these noises repulsed him like a 
forefront of battle. So he did not go into the 
house, but took his hand from the half-door and 
returned to the haggard, to the grave, understand- 
ing silence of the moon. 


§4 

Because he was so young, and thought he 
knew so much when in reality he knew so 
little, young Shane had thought, when he met 
Moyra Dolan, that he had discovered the morn- 
ing star. Five and a half years at sea, as 
apprentice and navigator, had shown his eyes 
much and his heart little. He knew Bermuda 
and the harbor of Kingston. He had beaten up 
the China Seas. He had seen the clouds over 
Table Mountain. He knew Baltimore. He 
had seen the bowsprits of the great Indiamen 
thrust over the quays of Poplar parish like 
muskets leveled over a barricade. And to him It 


THE WAKE AT ARDEE 


73 


was just a wonder, a strange spectacle. The 
streets were strange as in a dream, and the folk 
were strange as in a play. One wan- 
dered down an avenue, seeing the queer commodi- 
ties in the shops and booths. One wandered to 
the right. One wandered to the left. And 
there was great delight to finding a street one had 
seen before, maybe only five minutes ago, and one 
felt one was getting somewhere, was understand- 
ing the new country. 

But one never did understand the new country. 
All the people were strange. One could not 
imagine them about the daily business of life, 
waking, eating, buying, and selling. Black men 
and ocher-colored folk. There seemed to be a 
mystery somewhere. One imagined them gath- 
ering at night in secret to begin their real unun- 
derstood life. At times it seemed impossible 
that it was the same world. Surely the sun that 
struck like a hammer in Jamaica could not be the 
gracious warm planet that gilded the gorse of the 
Antrim glens. And up the Baltic in mid-winter 
it was bleak as a candle, and even then in Antrim 
it had a great kindliness. Nor were the winds 
the same. The hot puffs of the Indian Ocean, 
the drunken, lurching flaws of Biscay Bay, the 
trades that worked steadily as ants, had not the 
human quality of the winds of the Nine Glens, 


74 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


that were now angry as an angry man, now gentle 
as a gentle woman. 

Only one thing was constant, and that was the 
women whom sailors know in ports. And they 
wore masks. The same easily forced laughter, 
the same crude flattery, the complacent arms, the 
eternal eager hand . . . 

And then one day the new port palled, like a 
book one has read too often, or a picture one has 
looked at over-long. And it was sheet home the 
royals and off to a new port, where there were 
new strange people, and streets laid another way, 
and other things in the merchants’ booths, and a 
new language to pick up a phrase or two of. 

But in the end all palled for a time, the aphro- 
disiac tropic smell; the coral waters, clear as well 
water at home; the white houses with the green 
jalousies; the lush, coarse green. And the 
melancholic drums of the East palled. And 
palled the grimness of the North. And the un- 
ceasing processional of strange secret faces wear- 
ied the eye and the mind. And the angular 
spiritual edges of shipmates wore toward one 
through the uniform of flesh, became annoying, 
sometim.es unbearable. 

And then an immense yearning would come 
over young Shane for the beloved faces in the 
lamplight, for the white road over the purple 


THE WAKE AT ARDEE 


75 


heather, for the garden where the greened sun- 
dial was, with its long motto in the Irish letter: 

Is mairg a baidhtear in am an anaithe 

Na tig an ghrian in dhiaidh na fearthainne — 

as if anybody did n’t know that, that it was a pity 
to be drowned in time of storm, for the sun shines 
brightly when the rain goes I 

But the sun-dial was mirrored in his heart, and 
the purple mountain and the great dun house. 
The winds he sniffed as a hunting dog does, and 
each tack to port or starboard either thrilled or 
cast him down . . . When would he get there? 
Would it be cool of the evening, when the bats 
were out? Or would it be in the sunshine of the 
morning, when a great smell was from the 
heather? And who would hear the wicket-gate 
click as the latch was lifted, and put a welcome 
before him with a great shout, uncles Alan or 
Robin, or a servant girl or boy, or the bent old 
gardener who kept the lawn true as a bowling- 
green? ... Or would it be his mother? 


§5 


Aboard ship 
their problems. 


the young apprentices had 
problems of conduct, or of 


76 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


girls at home, or of money in port, but for young 
Shane there was always the problem of his 
mother. 

At home he had regarded as a matter of fact ! 
that she should come and go in her hard, efficient ' 
French way. It had not seemed strange to him 
that her mouth was tight, her eyes hard as di- 
amonds. It was to him one with his Uncle 
Robin’s solemnity and Alan Bonn’s gruff sports- 
manship. But away from home he thought of 
it, brooded over it. Her letters to him were so 
curt, so cut and dried! She wrote of the birth 
of another child to young Queen Victoria, — as if 
that mattered a tinker’s curse ! — or how her 
Holland bulbs, which she had bought at Belfast, 
had withered and died. She directed him “to 
pray God to keep him pure in mind and body, 
your affectionate mother, Louise de Damery 
Campbell.’’ Alan Bonn’s letters had the grand 
smell of harness about them. “You ’ll mind the 
brown gelding we bought at Ballymena. He dis- 
graced us at Bublin in the jumping competitions. 
You know he can jump his own height, but he got 
the gate after three tries. I could have graet like 
a bairn. Well, this will be all from your loving 
Uncle Alan. P.S. I caught the white trout in 
Johnson’s Brae burn. I was after him, and he 
was dodging me for six years. Your loving Uncle 


THE WAKE AT ARDEE 


77 


Alan, p.p.s. The championship is at Newcastle 
this year, and I think I Ve a grand chance. If 
you Ve home, you can caddy for me. Your 
loving Uncle Alan.” 

Uncle Robin’s letters had vast wisdom. “A> 
be reading the books, laddie. An ill-educated 
man feels always at a disadvantage among folk 
of talent. Aboard ship you can read and think 
more than at a university. 1 ’ve got a parcel for 
you to take when you go again. Hakluyt’s Voy- 
ages and a good Marco Polo. And the new book 
of Mr. Dickens, ‘The Haunted Man.’ And 
there ’s a great new writer you ’ll not want to 
miss, by name of Thackeray.” And there ’d be 
the Bank of England note, “for fear you might be 
needing it on a special occasion, and not having 
it, and feeling bad.” Dear Uncle Robin! And 
then the flash of tenderness, like a rainbow: “God 
bless you and keep you, my brother’s son!” 

His Uncle Robin’s letters he would greet with 
a smile, and perhaps a bit moistness in the eye; 
Alan Donn’s with a grin, as an elder brother’s. 
But his mother’s letters he would approach with 
a coldness akin to fear. He hated to open them. 
It was like an unpleasant duty. 

The realization of her was always a chilling 
disappointment, but the dream of her was a great 
hope. And in the black waters of the China 


78 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


Seas, or in the night watches off the Azores, where 
the porpoises played in the phosphorescence, 
there would come a sea-change over the knowledge 
he had of her. All the spiritual, all the mental 
angles of her faded into gracious line, and on the 
tight French lips of her a smile would play as a 
flower opens, and her eyes, hard as diamonds, 
would open and become kindly as a lighted house. 
And the strange things of the heart would come 
out, like little shy rabbits, or like the young 
tortoises, and bask in that kindly picture. And 
the things that were between them, that could not 
be said, but just sensed, as the primroses of spring 
are sensed, not seen, not felt, hardly smelt even, 
hut sensed . . . The hesitant deep things he 
would say and the dignified, smiling answer, or 
the pressure of the hand even, and the inclination 
of the shoulder . . . 

And the people he would meet who would ask 
him about his mother, and he could answer 
nothing, so that they thought him stupid and un- 
thoughtful. But really what was there to say? 

. . . And once when he sprang into Biscay Bay 
after a cabin-boy who had fallen over the taffrail, 
and the lad’s mother had thanked him in Plymouth 
for saving the child’s life : “Your mother will be 
very proud of you,” the old woman said. But 
the reality of the harsh Frenchwoman came to him 


THE WAKE AT ARDEE 


79 


like a slap in the face. “Christ, if she only 
were!’’ his heart cried. But the clipped little 
Scots-Irish voice replied, “Aye, I suppose she 
will.” 

And again the soft mood would come, and 
then he would have a letter from her, ending 
with that harsh command, that was a gust of some 
bleak tempest of her own life, where his father 
had perished: “Pray God to keep you pure in 
mind and body I” 

And homeward bound again, in the soft mur- 
mur of the wind among the shrouds, and the little 
laughter of the water at the bows, there would 
abide with him again the dream mother of the 
night watches, until he said to himself that surely 
the reality was false, and at the garden-gate she 
would be waiting for him with a great depth of 
kindness in her eyes, and arms warm as sunshine, 
and a bosom where a boy might rest his head for 
a moment after the great harshness of the strange 
places. 

But the kindliness came not from her. It came 
from Robin More, who ran down the garden 
faster than his dignity should have allowed him. 
“Are you all right, wee Shane? Is everything 
all right with you? You’re looking fine, but 
you haven’t been sick, wee fellow? Tell me, 
you haven’t been sick?” Or from Alan Donn, 


So 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


with his great snort of laughter: “Christ! are 
you home again? And all the good men that ’s 
been lost at sea I Well, the devil’s childer have 
the devil’s luck. Eigh, laddie, gie ’s a feel o’ ye. 
A Righ — O King of Graces, but you ’re the lean 
pup! Morag, Nellie, Cassie, some tea! and be 
damned quick about it!” 

And then his mother would come into the 
room, like a cold wind or a thin ghost, and there 
would be a kiss on the cheek, a cold, precise peck, 
like a bird’s. And, “Did you have a good 
voyage?” just as if she said, “Do you think we ’ll 
have rain?” 

Oh, well, to hell with it! as Alan Donn said 
when he flubbed his approach to the last green 
for some championship or other. “What you 
never had, you never lost!” 

Aye, true indeed. What you never had you 
could n’t very well lose. Aye, there was a lot in 
that. Just so; but — 

Boys do be thinking long . . . 


§ 6 


Because his Uncle Alan was in Scotland 
somewhere shooting deer and would not be 


THE WAKE AT ARDEE 


8i 


home for several days, and because Uncle Robin 
was in Paris, and because the Goban Saor put 
into Dundalk to take a cargo of unbleached linen, 
young Shane decided to stay there for a few days 
before proceeding northward to the Antrim 
Glens. He felt he could n’t face the house at 
Cushendu with his cold, precise mother alone 
there, so he accepted the hospitality of an appren- 
tice friend. 

It was at a country barn dance during these 
few days that he met Moyra Dolan. 

A tallish, tawny-haired woman with the dead- 
white skin that goes with reddish hair, with steel 
for eyes, there was a grace and carriage to her 
that put her aside from the other peasant girls 
as a queen may masquerade as a slave and yet be- 
tray herself as a queen. Other girls there were 
as pretty, with their hair like flax and their eyes 
like blue water; with hair like a dim blue cloud 
and eyes like a smudge of charcoal. But none 
had her teeth, her small ankles, her long, sensi- 
tive hands. Some strain of the Stuart cavaliers 
had crept into that hardy peasant stock on the way 
to the defeat of the Boyne Water. . . . She 
might have seemed nothing but a pretty lady’s 
maid in London or Dublin but in North Louth 
she was like a queen . . . 

Her looks were her tragedy, for she held 


82 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


herself too good for a laboring man to marry, 
and, having no dower, no farmer would have her. 
Among the peasantry romance does not count, 
but land. And if the Queen of Sheba, and she 
having nothing but her shift, were to offer herself 
in marriage to a strong farmer, he would refuse 
her for the cross-eyed woman in the next town- 
land who had twenty acres and five good milch 
cows . . . Only for the very rich or the very 
poor is romance I 

Her only chance for marriage was a matter of 
luck. She would have to meet some government 
official, or some medical student home on his 
holidays, or some small merchant whom her 
beauty would unbalance, as drink would unbal- 
ance him. And she must dazzle, and her old 
mother play and catch him, as a jack pike is 
dazzled by a spoon bait, hooked, and brought 
ashore. She might marry or might miss, or 
grow into an acidulous red-headed woman. It 
was a matter of luck. And her luck was in. She 
met young Shane Campbell. 

They danced together. They wandered in 
the moonlight. They met in the country lanes. 
And they were very silent, she because she 
played a game, and a counter is better than a lead, 
and he because he was in love with her. Had 
it been only a matter of sweethearting, he would 


THE WAKE AT ARDEE 


83 


have been merry as a singing bird, full of chatter, 
roughing it with her for a kiss. But it was love 
with him, and a thing for life, and life was long 
and more serious than death ... So he was 
silent. 

He was silent when he went home for a week, 
silent with uncles Robin and Alan, who sensed he 
was going through one of the crises of adoles- 
cence, and knew the best thing to do was to leave 
him alone. He was silent with his mother, who 
saw nothing, cared nothing, so intent was she on 
revolving within herself as inexorably as the 
planets revolve in space. He decided to spend 
the last days of his leave in Dundalk. And at 
the railroad station in Ballymena he hazarded a 
look at Alan Donn. 

“Uncle Alan — ” and he stopped. 

“What is it, laddie? Is it a girl troubling 
you? Take my advice and look her in the eyes 
and, ‘You can love me or leave me, and to hell 
with you r tell her. ‘Do you see this right foot of 
mine?’ says you. ‘Well, it ’s pointed to the next 
town-land, where there ’s just as pretty a one as 
you.’ And you ’ll find her come around; maybe 
there ’ll be a bit of an argument, but she ’ll come 
around. And if she does n’t, there ’d have been 
no hope for you, anyway. A touch o’ the spur 
for the lazy mare and a bit sugar for the jumper ! 


84 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


And when you Ve done loving her, gie her a 
chuck in the chin: ‘Good-by! Good luck! 
What you keep to yoursel’ ’ll worry nobody,’ 
says you. And to hell with her!” 

“Alan Bonn!” 

“Oh, it ’s that way, is it, Shaneen? If you ’re 
in deep water, there ’s none but yourself can help 
you, laddie. I thought it was just maybe a case 
o’ laugh and kiss me. But it’s different, is it? 
There ’s no use giving advice. What ’s in you 
will out. But remember this: when it ’s over, for 
good or bad, your Uncle Alan ’s here, to laugh 
with you or greet with you or help you out of a 
hole. So — 

“Good-by, laddie. Beannacht leat! My bless- 
ing with you !” 


9 7 

“Young lad, what is this you have done to my 
fine young daughter?” 

“I have done nothing, Bhean ’i Dolain,” young 
Shane flared up, “save in honor, and the man or 
woman who says other lies.” 

“Agra, I know that. I know there ’s no harm 
in you from head to foot. And the trouble 


THE WAKE AT ARDEE 


85 


you Ve put on her is in her heart. All day long 
she sighs, and is listless as a shaded plant that 
does be needing the sun. All night long she 
keeps awake, and the wee silent tears come down 
her face. And before my eyes she ’s failing, and 
her step that was once light now drags the like of 
a cripple’s. Young lad of the North, you ’ve put 
love in the heart of her and sorrow in the mind.” 

“I ’m not so sprightly in the mind myself, 
woman Dolan.” 

“I know, avick. I know. Is n’t it myself 
that ’s suffered the seven pangs of love and I a 
young girl? But it ’s easy on a man, avick. He 
can go into the foreign countries, and put it out 
of his mind, or take to the drink and numb the 
great pain. But for a woman it ’s different. 
It ’s the like of a disfiguration that all can see. 
And when you ’re gone away, sure all will re- 
member, for men do be minding long. The 
marrying time will come, and they ’ll look at my 
grand young daughter: strong farmer, and mer- 
chant of the shop, and drover does be going to 
England for the cattle-fairs, and they’ll say: 
‘Is n’t that the red girl gave love to the sailing 
fellow, and burnt her heart out so that there ’s 
no sap in it for me?’ And they ’ll pass her by, 
my grand young daughter, that ’s the equal of 
any.” 


86 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


“And what would you have me do, woman of 
the house?” 

“What would any decent man do but marry 
her?” 

“Aye ! . . . Aye I I thought of marrying her, 
if she ’d have me . . . But we hardly know each 
other yet . . . and maybe I ’m top young . . .” 

“If you ’re able to handle a ship, you ’re able 
to handle a woman, young lad. And what time 
is better for marriage nor the first flush of youth? 
Sure you grow together like the leaves upon the 
tree. Let you not be putting it off now, but spring 
like a hero.” 

“But is n’t the matter of her faith between us, 
woman of the house?” 

“And sure that can be fixed later. Will the 
priest mind, do you think, so long as she does 
her duty? And a sixpence in the plate on Sunday 
is better nor a brown ha’penny, and a half-sov- 
ereign at Easter will soothe black anger like heal- 
ing grass. Very open in thought I am, and I 
knowing the seven pangs of love. Let you go 
to your own clergyman, and she ’ll go with you, 
I ’ll warrant, so eaten is she by love.” 

“My people, woman o’ the house — ” 

“Your people, is it? Sure it is n’t your people 
is marrying my grand young daughter, but you 
yourself. The old are crabbit, and they do be 


THE WAKE AT ARDEE 


87 


thinking more of draining a field, or of the price 
of flax, nor of the pain and delights of love. 
And it ’s always objections. But there can be no 
objecting when the job ’s finished.” 

She looked at him shrewdly. 

“A grand influence, a grand steadying influence 
is marriage on a sailing man. It keeps you from 
spending your money in foreign ports, where you 
only buy trickery for your silver. And when 
you have a wife at home, you ’ll have little truck 
with fancy women, who have husbands behind 
the screen, sometimes, and them with knives . . . 
So I ’ve heard tell ... Or maybe get an evil 
sickness. Listen to an old woman has wisdom, 
bold lad.” 

“When I come from my voyage . . .” 

“Dark lad, if anything happens to you, and 
you drowning in the black water, the great regret 
that will be on you and the water gurgling into 
your lungs, and, ‘Was n’t I the fool of the world,’ 
you ’ll say, ‘that might have heard the crickets 
singing in the night-time and my white love by 
my side? And might have had power of kiss- 
ing and lovemaking, but was young and foolish, 
and lay be my lee lone . . .’ ” 

But this was the wrong tack, the old woman 
noticed, and came about. 

“And all the time you ’re away, my daughter 


88 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


will be pining for you, drooping and pining, my 
grand young daughter, and the spring will go out 
of her step and the light from her eyes 
and the luster from the hair that ’s a wonder 
to all . . . Oh, isn’t it the cruel thing?” 

“My ship sails the day after to-morrow.” 

She saw surrender in his face, rose quickly, 
and went to the door. 

“Come inside, Moyra, Moyreen! And be 
putting your cloak on, with the ribbons that tie 
beneath your chin. And your dress of muslin that 
the lady in Newry gave you. And stockings. 
And your shoes of leather. And I ’ll be putting 
on my Paisley shawl. And this young boy will 
be getting Michael Doyle’s horse and trap. 
Come in, Moyreen, come in and put haste on you, 
for it ’s going to Dundalk we are, this day, this 
hour, this minute even!” 


§ 8 

It occurred to him as he sat in the haggard 
under the riding moon, not a pitch shot from the 
house where his wife was being waked, that noth- 
ing was disturbed because she was dead. It 
was not strange that the stars kept on their 


THE WAKE AT ARDEE 


89 


courses, for the death of neither king nor cardinal 
nor the wreck of the greatest ship that ever sailed 
the seas would not move them from their ac- 
customed orbit. But not a robin in the hedge 
was disturbed, not a rabbit in the field, not a 
weasel in the lane. Nature never put off her 
impenetrable mask. Or did she really not care? 
And was a human soul less to her than a worm in 
the soil? 

There was a stir in the house. They would be 
making tea now for the men and women who 
said they were mourners . . . The querulous 
voice of his wife’s mother came to him as some 
one led her from the heated house into the coolih 
of the June night. 

“Great sacrifices we made for him, myself and 
the white' love that ’s stretched beyond in the 
room. All we had we gave him, and all she 
found was barren death, and I the barren charity 
of Northern men . . .” 

“Oh, sure, ’t is the pity of the world you are, 
Pegeen,” a neighbor comforted her. 

“On his bended knees he came to her, asking 
for love,” the cailleach went on. “On his bare 
and bended knees. And her heart melted toward 
him as the snow melts on the hills. ‘And had 
n’t you better wait,’ said I, ‘Moyreen Roe? 
With the great looks and the grand carriage of 


90 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


you, ’t is a great match you can make surely. A 
gentleman from England, maybe, would have a 
castle and fine lands, or the pick of the dealing 
men, and they going from Belfast to Drogheda 
and stopping overnight at Ardee. Or would n’t 
it be better for you to marry one of your own 
kind, would go to church with you in a kindly 
way?’ 

“ ‘But if I don’t marry this lad, he ’ll kill him- 
self,’ she says to me. 

“ ‘B.ut your faith,’ says I, ‘ ’avourneen, your 
holy faith, surely you will not be forsaking that 
for this boy !’ ” 

“And what did she say to that, Pegeen?” the 
neighbor asked. 

“ ‘Sure it ’s promised to turn he has,’ she an- 
swered. ‘And do everything is right by me, so 
much I love him !’ ” 

“The treacherous Ulster hound I” The neigh- 
bor inveighed. 

“Treacherous by race and treacherous by na- 
ture. Sure, can ’t you see it, the way he treats 
me? Sorrow word he has for me, that bore the 
wife of his bosom, barring, ‘Alan Bonn Camp- 
bell will see you and fix up everything.’ And 
have n’t I met Alan Campbell once before, and 
it ’s the cold eye he has and the hard heart. And 
this is all the return I get for bearing the white 


THE WAKE AT ARDEE 


91 


darling would be fit mate for a king. There was 
a publican of Dundalk had an eye on her, a big 
red-faced, hearty man. And she might have 
married him but this lad came and spoiled every- 
thing. And if she ’d married him, I ’d have been 
sitting in the parlor of the public house, in a 
seemly black dress and a brooch in the bosom of 
it, taking my pinch of snuff and my strong cup 
of tea with a drop of Hollands in it would warm 
the cockles of your heart, and listening to the 
conversation of the fine customers and them loos-^ 
ening up with the drink. And the ould grannies 
would have courtesied to me and hate in their 
hearts. But now a leaf on the wind am I, a 
broken twig on the stream. And the black men 
of Ulster have me for a plaything, the men that 
have a hatred for me and my kind, so that it ’s a 
knife they ’d put in you, or poison in your tea — ” 

“Let you be coming in now, Pegeen. Let you 
be coming in now. And take a cup of tea would 
put heart in you, or something strong, maybe. 
And then we ’ll be saying a prayer for her who ’s 
gone — ” 

“Dead she is, the poor heart, dead she is, and 
better off nor I am — ” 

Her high querulousness died away as she went 
into the house, and again was the silence of the 
riding moon. All her grief, all her lies, all her 


92 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


bitterness had not stirred a leaf upon the bough. 
Not a robin in the hedge was disturbed by her 
calamity, not a rabbit in the field, not a weasel in 
the lane . . . 


§ 9 

He thought to himself: had they rushed him 
into this marriage? And he answered himself 
truthfully, they had not. He could have said 
no, and stood by his no, young as he was, against 
every old woman and every young woman in the 
world. No, fast as they had worked, they 
had n’t worked faster than his thought had. 

And did he marry because he was in love with 
Moyra Dolan? He was in love with her, he con- 
ceded that. For what the term was accepted at, 
he was in love with her. Women he had met in 
his twenty years, great ladies of the Ulster clans ; 
shy, starched misses from the Friends’ School; 
moody peasant girls; merry women of the for- 
eign ports, and to none of them had he felt that 
strange yearning he had felt toward Moyra 
Dolan, the strange pull that sends the twig in 
the diviner’s hands down toward the hidden 
water. Yes, he was in love with her, but was it 


THE WAKE AT ARDEE 


93 


because of that he had married her? And he 
truthfully answered, no. 

He remembered, the mood coming back to him 
as concretely as an action, what he had thought 
while the old woman had wheedled him with her 
voice like butter. All he had thought in his 
prentice days at sea, all he had thought of in the 
night watches, all he had thought of in the lone- 
liness of his mother’s house, had gathered like 
great cloud-banks at night, and had suddenly 
taken form and color and purpose in that one 
moment, as a cloud-bank at the coming of the sun 
. . . Life had appeared to him in one brief 
moment, and he had tried to grasp it. 

It had seemed to him right that he would go 
down to the sea in ships all his days, and trade 
in foreign ports, and work, transmuting effort 
into gain, and should tome home to rest. 

And for whom was the gain? And where was 
home? Surely not for himself was the gain, and 
home was not his cold mother’s house ? And now 
that he had come to manhood as boys come at 
sea, braving danger and thinking mightily, it was 
for him to decide. 

A mirage, a seeming, a thing to look at, to go 
get bravely had come into his mind in little pic- 
tures, like prints in a book. A thing of sim- 
plicity, simple as the sea, and as colorful and as 


94 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


wholesome and as beautiful. He thought of a 
little thatched and whitewashed house with a cob- 
bled yard clean as a ship’s decks, and a garden 
where the bluish green stalks and absurdly pretty 
flowers of potatoes would come in spring, and 
one side would be the red and white of the clover, 
and on the other would be the minute blue flower 
of the flax; and an old dog drowsing on the 
threshold . . . And this would be in his mind as 
he wandered the hot foreign streets . . . And 
there would be the droning of the bees in the 
clover, and the swish of the swallows darting to 
and from the eaves, and in the evening would be 
the singing of the crickets . . . And these he 
would hear over the capstan’s clank . . . When 
he tumbled into his cabin after his watch, into the 
heeling room where the lamp swung overhead 
like a crazy thing, and all was a litter of oilskins 
and sea-boots, and a great dampness everywhere, 
he would know there was a swept cottage in Louth 
where the delft shone on the dresser in the kindly 
light of the turf, and there would be a spinning- 
wheel in the corner, and big rush-bottomed 
chairs, and the kettle singing on the hob . . . 
And when his comrades would leave the ship in 
port of nights to go to the houses where music 
and dancing were, and crazy drinking, and where 
the adroit foreign women held out their arms 


THE WAKE AT ARDEE 


95 


of mystery and mercenary romance, he would 
lean over the tahrail and laugh and shake his 
head : 

“No, I think I ’ll stay on board.” “Come on, 
young Shane. There ’s a woman down at Mother 
Parkinson’s and they say she ’s an Austrian arch- 
duchess who has run away with a man, and got 
left. Come on.” Or, “There ’s a big dance 
over on the beach to-night, and a keg of rum, and 
the native women. Jump in.” “No, I think I ’ll 
stay on board and read.” “Come on. Don’t 
be a fool.” “No, go ahead and enjoy yourselves. 
I ’ll stay on board.” And there would be the 
plash of oars as they rowed shoreward, and may- 
be a song raised . . . And he would make him- 
self comfortable under the awning of the after 
deck, and read the bundles of newspapers from 
home, of how Thomas Chalmers, the great Scot- 
tish preacher, was dead, or how a new great singer 
had been heard in London, a Swedish girl, her 
name was Jenny Lind, or how Shakspere’s house 
had been bought and a great price paid for it, 
three thousand pounds ... Or he would read 
one of the new books that were coming out in a 
flood, a new one by Mr. Dickens, the bite of the 
new writer, Mr. Thackeray with his “Vanity 
Fair,” or that strange book written by a woman. 


96 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


“Wuthering Heights” . . . But in a little minute 
the volume would fall to his knees, and the people 
of the book would leave the platform of his mind, 
and a real, warmer presence come to it . . . He 
could see the gracious, kindly womanhood now 
move through the house, now come to the door 
to watch the far horizon . . . Of evenings she 
would stand dreaming at the lintel while he was 
leaning dreaming over the taffrail, and though 
there were ten thousand miles between them their 
hearts would be intimate as pigeons . . . And 
he would think of coming home to the peaceful 
cottage and the wife with the grave eyes and 
kindly smile, and if he were a day ahead of time, 
she would forget her reserve in great joy, and low, 
pleased laughter would jet from her throat . . . 
And if he were on time, there would be the quiet 
grave confidence: “I knew your step!” . . . 
And if he were late, there would be the passing 
of the cloud from the brows : ‘‘Thank God! I 
— I was — just a trifle worried!” . . . And the 
greetings over, she would look at him with a 
smile and a little lift of the eyebrows, and he 
would give her what he had brought from the 
voyage: a ring from Amsterdam, maybe, where 
the great jewelers are, or heavy silken stockings 
of France; or had he gone to the West Indies, a 
great necklet of red coral; or some fancy in hum- 


THE WAKE AT ARDEE 


97 


ming-birds’ feathers from the Brazils; lace from 
Porto Rico, that the colored women make with 
their slim brown fingers; things of hammered 
brass from India; and were he to China in the 
tea-trade, a coat such as a mandarin’s lady would 
wear. . . . And with each gift there would be 
gasp of incredulous surprise, and “O Shaneen, 
you should n’t have!” . . . And then the evening 
would come, and they would stand on the thresh- 
old, and he would listen to the sounds the sea- 
men never hear: the swish and ripple of the wind 
among the trees, the birds settling themselves to 
sleep amid the boughs, the bittern that boomed 
like a horn, and the barking of a distant dog, 
and the crickets that do be singing when the eve- 
ning falls. . . . And he would turn from that to 
find her arms out and her lips apart, who could 
wait no longer, and together they would go into 
their house, where the red turf had turned yelloW 
— together, over their own threshold, into their 
own house . . . And when the time came for 
him to go to sea again, she would be grave with 
unshed tears and a brave smile . . . And one 
day after a long voyage, when she had greeted 
him, she would say, “Some one has come to our 
house 1” and he wouldn’t understand, and be an- 
noyed, until she showed him the little warm head 
in the cradle, and he would drop on his knees 


98 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


reverentially, and there would be great silent 
tears from him, and all her heart would show in 
her quiet smile . . . 

And never an old woman on Naples quay would 
ask him for an alms but would get it, he thinking 
all the time of the old woman with the tow-like 
hair who abode in his house, his wife’s mother. 
And she would be comfortable there in her old 
days, with always a fire to warm her, and always 
a cup of tea to cheer her up, and a kindly ear for 
her stories of ancient days, and a thanks for the 
alien rosaries she would say, praying for his safe 
return from the almighty waters. . . . And never 
a dog on his travels but would get a pat and a 
whistle, and he thinking of the grizzled terrier 
in Louth that guarded the threshold of quiet 
beauty . . . 

And so he would have been content to live all 
his days, so he thought he would live, going down 
to the dangers of the sea, trading in strange ports, 
and transmuting hard, untiring effort into gain 
for her at home and her children, and he would 
grow old and grizzled, until he could no longer 
brace to a heeling plank or stand the responsi- 
bility of a ship’s mastery, and then they would 
buy a little house on some harbor, while their sons 
went rolling down to Rio or fought the typhoon 
in the China Seas, and he could sit there with his 


THE WAKE AT ARDEE 


99 


telescope, watching the ships go by, or come in 
and out hauling up mainsail or making their moor- 
ing, and grumbling pleasantly at how good sea- 
manship fades and dies ... 

All this he had thought out in the loneliness 
of foreign ports, in the night watches aboard 
ship, in the inhospitality of his mother’s house, 
and on the jaunting-car to Dundalk. All this he 
had thought out, and on its basis gone into mar- 
riage. And it would just have been as well for 
him, better perhaps, had he thrown a coin into 
the air to find out whether he should marry or no. 

And that was what human thought was worth 
— a brown penny thrown into the empty air! 

^^Gloir do*n Athair^ agas do^n MhaCy agas do*n 
Spiorad Naomh/^ went the drone of the rosary 
within. “Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, 
and to the Holy Ghost, Amen!” 


§ 10 

And the house that he had known in a dream 
was no more in reality than a cold strange dwell- 
ing; all was there, the whitewash, the thatch, the 
delft on the dresser, but as a home it was still- 
born. The turf did not burn well and the swal- 


lOO 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


lows shunned the eaves, feeling, in nature’s occult 
way, that the essential rhythm was wanting. 
Nor would bees be happy in the skips, but must 
swarm otherward. One would have ^said the 
house was built on some tragic rock . . . 

Only the old dog was faithful, and stayed where 
his master put him. 

And the face he had dreamed would not look 
toward him over the illimitable ocean. Seek as 
he would, it was never there, with warm gravity. 
His eyes might strive, but all they would see was 
the oily swell of the Dogger Bank, and the great 
plowed field of Biscay Bay, and the smash of 
foam against the Hebrides. Never would a space 
in the watery horizon open and show him a thresh- 
old of beauty with quiet, brooding face . . . 
And when he came home, either late or early, or 
on time to the moment, it was, “Och, is it your- 
self?” And the only interruption to the house 
was the little more trouble he caused. And his 
gifts were treated tepidly, though with cupid- 
inous eyes. In the evening, if he stood on the 
threshold, it was: “Wisha, is it going out you 
are? And isn’t it enough of the fresh air you 
have, and you on the salt water?” And her em- 
braces were half chastity, half sin, tepidly pas- 
sionate, unintimate ... so that shame was on 
him, and no pride or joyousness . . . Cold! 


THE WAKE AT ARDEE 


lOI 


cold! cold! ... A cold house, a cold woman 
. . . No light or warmth or graciousness . . . 

And the old woman whom he had thought of 
as warm and peaceful by the fire was a hag with a 
peasant’s cupidity: “And isn’t it a little more 
you can be leaving us, darling lad, what with the 
high price that does be on things in this place and 
you not spending a brown ha’penny aboard ship? 
. . . And herself might be taken sick now, and 
would n’t it be a grand thing, a wee store of 
money in the house? Or the wars might come, 
find you far on the sea ! An extra sovereign 
now, brave fellow, a half-sovereign itself!” 

And when he left it was of less import than 
the cow going dry. Only one mourned him, the 
old dog. Only one remembered him, the half- 
blind badger hound, that dreamed of ancient 
hunting days . . . 

And he would go down to his ship, heart- 
broken, when none was looking a mist of tears in 
his eyes, — he was not yet twenty-one, — but in a 
day or so that would pass, and the sea that was 
so strong would give him of its strength and 
heal him, so that after a few days he could stand 
up and say ; “Well . . . Huuh . . . Well . . .” 

A trick had been played him, like some tricks 
the sea and sun play. Afar off he had seen an 
island like an appointed dancing place, like the 


102 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


Green of Fiddlers, and he had asked to be put 
ashore there, to live and be a permanent citizen. 
x\nd when he was landed, he found that his danc- 
ing place was only a barren rock where the sea- 
gulls mourned. Past the glamour of the sun and 
sea mists, there were only cold, searching winds 
and dank stone . . . 

But he came of a race that are born men, 
breed men, and kill men. Crying never patched 
a hole in a brogue, and a man who ’s been fooled 
is no admirable figure, at least to Antrim men. 
So shut your mouth! When a master loses a 
ship he gets no other. That is the inexorable 
rule of the sea. So when a man wrecks his 
life . . . 

What he had decided was this: go ahead. 
He had been fooled; pay the forfeit. Retreat 
into his own heart, and go ahead. Thirty, forty 
years . . . He had himself to blame. And it 
was n’t as if he had to live in the house all the 
time; he had only to come back there. All that 
was killed was his heart. His frame was still 
stolid, his eye clear . . . There would be little 
oases here and there, some great record of a 
voyage broken, friends bravely made, a kiss now 
and then, freely, gallantly given . . . But . . . 
go ahead! 

And then suddenly death had come, and the 


THE WAKE AT ARDEE 


103 


scheme of life was broken, like a piece from the 
end of a stick. Death he had seen before, but 
never so close to him. A good man nad died 
and he had said: “God! there ’s a pity!” though 
why he did n’t know. And a young girl might 
die, and it would seem like a tragedy in a play. 
And a child would die, and he would feel hurt 
and say, “Yon’s cruelty,' yon I” And death had 
seemed to be an ultimate word. 

But never before now had he seen the ramifica- 
tions of death. Life had seemed to him to be a 
straight line, and suddenly he was inspired to the 
knowledge that it was a design, a pattern, a 
scheme . . . And now he felt it was only a tool, 
like a knife, or scissors, in the hands of what? 
. . . What? Destiny? ... or what? . . . 


§ II 

'‘'‘A chraoibhin aoihhinn! O pleasant little 
branch, is there regard in you for the last words 
of the dead woman?” The old cailleach had 
come again to ruffle the grave silence about 
young Shane in the haggard. 

“Was it — was it anything for me?” 

“And whom would it be for, acushla veg? 


104 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


Sure the love of her heart you were, the white 
love of her heart. You and me she was thinking 
of, her old mother that saw a power of trouble. 
Ill-treated I was by Sergeant Dolan, who fought 
old Bonaparte in the foreign wars, and took to 
drinking in the dreadful days of peace. Harsh 
my life was, and peaceful should my end be, the 
like of a day that does be rainy, and turns fine at 
evening-time. And that was what she wanted, 
a charaid bhig, little friend o’ me.” 

“What now?” 

“She said to me, and she dying in my arms 
and the blue spirit coming out of the red lips of 
her — och ! achanee ! — ‘Sure it ’s not in that 
grand Northern lad to see you despised in your 
old age, and the grannies of the neighborhood 
laughing at you who boasted often. The wee 
house he ’ll give you — the wee house is com- 
fortable for an old woman — ’ ” 

“But the house is n’t mine. It ’s Alan Donn 
Campbell’s. It is n’t mine to give, and I 
have n’t the money to buy it. All the money I 
have is my pay and what my uncles give me — and 
they won’t see you want.” 

“But isn’t it the grand rich Northern family 
you are? And won’t there be money coming to 
you when your uncles and mother die?” 

“I suppose so.” 


THE WAKE AT ARDEE 


105 


“Well now, agra, a few of us have been think- 
ing. And Manus McGinty, the priest’s brother, 
is willing to advance you the money at interest, to 
be paid him when your people die. And you cai. 
buy the house, and a slip of a pig I can be fatten- 
ing against the Christmas market.” 

“No!” 

“Och, agra,” she whined, “you would n’t go 
back on the words of the poor girl, and her dying 
in my arms? And she was thinking of you when 
she should have been thinking of her God! And 
the grand subtle things she said of you, that only 
a woman can understand! Sure it was of love 
for you she died, you being away so long from her 
on the salt and bitter sea — ” 

“Listen, woman Dolan. I heard how Moyra 
died as I came through the village. She died as 
she was beating my poor old hound. She 
dropped dead from the passion in her, like a shot 
man. So where ’s all your love and your long 
dying wishes as she lay in your arms?” 

He arose and walked away from her, through 
the haggard, under the sky, where the southeast 
cloud-banks rolled steadily toward the placid 
moon. And there was silence for an instant, so 
speechless he left her. And then suddenly her 
ancient shrill voice cut the air like a drover’s 


io6 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


“You Orange bastard!” 


§ 12 

The feeling that was uppermost in him as he 
sat outside the thatched cottage in the moon- 
light while the wake was within was not 
grief at his wife’s death; not a shattered mind 
that his life so carefully laid out not twelve 
months before was disoriented; not any self-pity; 
not any grievance against God such as little men 
might have. But a strange dumb wonder . . . 
There she lay within, in her habit of a Dominican 
lay sister, her hands waxy, her face waxy, her 
eyelids closed. And six guttering candles were 
about her, and woman droned their prayers with 
a droning as of bees. There she lay with her 
hands clasped on a wooden crucifix. And no 
more would the robins wake her, and they fussing 
in the great hawthorn-tree over the coming of 
dawn. No longer would she rake the ash from 
the peat and blow the red of it to a little blaze. 
No longer would she beat his dog out of the 
house with the handle of the broom. No longer 
would she forgather with the neighbors over a 
pot of tea for a pleasant vindictive chat. No 


THE WAKE AT ARDEE 


107 


longer would she look out to sea for him with 
her half-loving, half-inimical eyes. No longer 
in her sharpish voice would she recite her rosary 
and go to bed. 

And to-morrow they would bury her — there 
would be rain to-morrow: the wind was sou’east, 
— they would lower her, gently as though she 
were alive, into a rectangular slot in the ground, 
mutter alien prayers in an alien tongue with busi- 
ness of white magic, pat the mound over as a 
child pats his castle of sand on the sea-shore — and 
leave her there in the rain. 

A month from now they would say a mass for 
her, a year from now another, but to-morrow, to- 
day, yesterday even, she was finished with all of 
life — with the fussy excited robins of dawn; with 
the old dog that wanted to drowse by the fire; 
with the young husband who was either too much 
or too little of a man for her; with the clicking 
beads she would tell in her sharpish voice; with 
each thing; with everything . . . 

And here was the wonder of it, the strange 
dumb wonder, that the snapping of her life meant 
less in reality to him than the snapping of a stay 
aboard ship. The day after to-morrow he would 
mount the deck of Patrick Russell’s boat, and 
after a few crisp orders would set out on the 
eternal sea, as though she were still alive in her 


io8 THE PFIND BLOTVETH 


cottage, as though, indeed, she had never even 
lived, and northward he would go past the 
purple Mull of Cantyre; past the Clyde, where 
the Ayrshire sloops danced like bobbins on the 
water; past the isles, where overhead drove the 
wedges of the wild swans, trumpeting as on a 
battle-field; past the Hebrides, where strange 
arctic birds whined like hurt dogs; northward 
still to where the northern lights sprang like 
dancers in the black winter nights; eastward and 
southward to where the swell of the Dogger 
Bank rose, where the fish grazed like kine . . . 
Over the great sea he would go, as though 
nothing had happened, not even the snapping of a 
stay — down to the sea, where the crisp winds of 
dawn were, and the playful, stupid, short-sighted 
porpoises; the treacherous, sliding icebergs; and 
the gulls that cried with the sea’s immense 
melancholy; and the great plum-colored 
whales . . . 


PART THREE 


THE MOUTH OF HONEY 



THE MOUTH OF HONEY 


§ I 

I T was all like a picture some painter of an old 
and obvious school might have done. First, 
there was the port, with the white ships riding 
at their moorings in the blue sea. Then grayish 
white Marseilles, with its two immense ribbons, 
the Cannebiere running northward, and the Rue 
de Rome and the Prado intersecting it. The 
great wooded amphitheater rising like a wave 
and little Notre Dame de la Garde peeking like 
a sentry out to sea. And eastward from the 
quays were the little jagged islands the Phenicians 
knew. If, and Rion, Jaros, strange un-French 
names . . . the sunshine yellow as a lamp, and 
the sea blue as flax, and the green woods, and the 
ancient grayish white city — all a picture some 
unimaginative painter would have loved. Next 
to Belfast, Marseilles was to Shane Campbell a 
second home. There it was, like your own 
house ! 

Obvious and drowsy it might seem, but once 
he went ashore, the swarming, teeming life of it 

III 


112 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


struck Shane like a current of air. Along the 
quays, along the Cannebiere, was a riot of color 
ant] natlonalltv unbelievable from on board ship- 
Here were Turks dignified and shy. Here were 
Greeks, wary,, furtive. Here were Italians, 
Genoese, Neapolitans, Livonians, droll, vivacious, 
vindictive. Here were Moors, here were Al- 
gerians, black African folk, sneering, inimical. 
Here were Spaniards, with their walk like a 
horse’s lope. Here were French business men, 
very important. Here were Provencals, cheery, 
short, tubby, excitable, olive-colored, black- 
bearded, calling to one another in the langue 
d*oc of the troubadours, mon honl 

Commoun as? QuezacoT* 

And the bustle of the shops and the bustle of 
cafes, until Shane was forced to go out to the 
olive-lined roads to the rocky summit of La Garde, 
and once there, as if drawn by a magnet, Shane 
would enter the chapel in the fort, where the 
most renowned Notre Dame of the Mediter- 
ranean smiles mawkishly in white olive-wood. 
After the blinding sun of the Midi, the cool dark 
chapel was like a dungeon to him, so little could he 
see anything; but in a while the strange furni- 
ture of the place would take form before his 
eyes: the white statue of the Virgin, the silver 
tunny-fish, the daubs of sea hazards whence the 


THE MOUTH OF HONEY 


113 

Virgin had rescued grateful mariners, the rope- 
ends, the crutches . . . And though none might 
be in the chapel, yet it was full of life, so much 
did the pathetic ex-votos teU . . . And he would 
come out of the chapel, and again the Midi sun. 
would flash in a shower of gold, and he could 
see the blue Mediterranean, pricked with minute 
lateen-sails, and the grayish town beneath him, so 
old and yet so vital, and the calm harbor, with 
the forest of spars, and Monte Cristo, white as 
an egg . . . 

A queer town that, as familiar as a channel 
marking, teeming as an ant-hill, and when dark- 
ness came over it, and he viewed it from the 
after deck, mystery came, too . . . For a while 
there was a hush, and around the hills gigantic 
ghosts walked . . . One thought of the Pho- 
coeans who had founded it, and to whom the 
Cannebiere was a rope-walk, where they made the 
sheets for their ships . . . And one thought of 
Lazarus, who had been raised from among the 
silent dead and who had come there, so legend 
read, a gray figure in ceramic garments, standing 
in the prow of a boat . . . 

One thing Robin More had told him remained 
in his mind and captured his fancy, and that was 
that Pontius Pilate had been governor of Mar- 
seilles after his office in Judea. And of him 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


ili 

Shane would think when the mysterious dusk came 
on the Midi hills . . . Pilate, who had smiled, 
‘‘What is truth?” and who had turned Christ 
over to the mob ... A big man, he imagined 
the Roman to have been, with clever eyes, and 
a great black beard covering a weak chin . . . 
A man who knew all the subtleties of mind, and 
had no backbone . . . And he could see the Ro- 
man, sitting on his villa porch in the dusk with 
tortured eyes, and fingering his beard with fingers 
that shook . . . Paul was going through Greece 
and Rome like a flame, and the Pilate wondered 
. . . Could it have been possible? . . . Ridic- 
ulous! a Jewish carpenter ! A crazy man! . . . 
And yet . . . Could it have been possible . . . 
No! no! no! And yet . . . People had seen 
Him walk on the waves . . . But people never 
knew what they saw, exactly . . . No! How 
foolish! . . . He raised a man from the dead 
they said . . . And that centurion — ^what was his 
name? — his daughter! . . . No, a stupid Jewish 
legend . . . And yet . . . Could it be possible? 
Could it? Could it? 

“Lights! Lights! Do you hear me! Bring 
lights! Lights!” Pilate would all but scream, 
panic-stricken in the Midi dusk . . . 

To Shane Campbell Marseilles had been all 
this for two years while he journeyed from Liver- 


THE MOUTH OF HONEY 


115 


pool for silk and scented soaps — a landmark 
familiar as the Giant’s Causeway, a strange, mot- 
ley human circus, a veil behind which hid gigantic 
ghosts , . . Until he met La Mielleuse on the 
road to Aix. 


§ 2 

For six years now, since the day they had 
buried his wife in the green divots of Louth, 
women had been alien to him. It was not that he 
hated them, not that he was uncomfortable among 
them; but the thought of close mental or spiritual 
or physical contact with them put him in a panic, 
as one might be in a panic at the thought of 
contact with some Chinaman, or Eskimo. The 
women of the better class in ports importuned 
him, but he passed with a grave humorous smile 
and an unexpected courtesy. His friends’ wives 
or acquaintances could get nothing out of him 
but a grave answer to any questions they might 
put, so that they characterized him as a stick. 
And at home in Ulster, whither he went after 
occasional voyages, where Robin More still 
drowsed over his books; where Alan Donn still 
hunted and fished and golfed, haler at five and 


ii6 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


fifty than a boy in his early twenties; and where 
his mother sat and did beautiful broidery, dumbly, 
inimically» cold as a fish, secretive as a badger, 
there he would meet the women of the 
Antrim families, women who knew of the 
disaster of his marriage, and they would look 
approvingly at his firm face and smiling, steady 
eyes, and they would say: “A man, thon! He 
could be a good friend. You could trust him, 
a woman could.” They were unco good folk, 
Antrim folk. 

For the peasant girls around he had always a 
laugh and a joke. And for the young girls from 
school he had always a soft spot in his heart 
somehow, appreciating them as one appreciates 
the first primrose or a puppy dog playing on the 
lawn or the lark in the clear air. There came 
such a current of beauty and freshness from them 
. . . New from the hand of the Maker . . . 
They were pausing now, as the wind pauses on 
the tide . . . And in a little while the world, 
the damned world ! . . . And so he treated them 
with a great gravity, answering their questions 
on geography, telling them what an estuary was, 
and what the trade-winds, and how a typhoon 
came and paused and passed: and how jute and 
grain and indigo were taken from Calcutta, and 
of the Hooghly, the most difficult river in the 


THE MOUTH OF HONEY 


17 


world to navigate, and of the shoal called “James 
and Mary” . . . And they listened to him with 
wide-open, violet eyes » . . 

And there were two women, Leah Fraser, a 
slight woman with hair smooth and reddish like 
a gold coin, and eyes that thought and saw back 
of things, and slender, beautiful hands, and she 
moved with the dignity of a swan . . . And 
there was Anne MacNeill, who handled a horse 
as a man would, and was a great archer — she 
could shoot as far as Alan could drive a golf- 
ball with a spoon . . . Shane could always see 
her, a Diana on the greensward, leaning forward, 
listening to hear the smack of the arrow on the 
target . . . And both these women were his 
good friends, the thought of them filling his mind 
like sweet lavender . . . But when they were 
each alone with him, and a little silence would 
come, then panic would fall on him, and he would 
make an undignified escape from their company 
proffering any old excuse . . . And they would 
watch him go, with little twisted smiles . . . 
Poor Leah I Poor Anne I 

All the love in him, that some sweet, gracious 
woman should have had, was anesthetized, or it 
was deflected, perhaps, to the great three-masted 
schooner he was now owner and master of, a beau- 
tiful boat that had been christened the Ulster 


/ 


ii8 THE WIND BLOWETH 


Lady, and came from the yards at Belfast, taking 
the water as nobly as a swan. From truck to 
keelson there was no part of her imperfect; from 
stem to stern. Barring a little tendency to be 
cranky before the wind in a seaway, nothing 
better sailed. Jammed, or on the wind, she was 
like a hare before the hounds, so quickly did she 
go. Her slim black body, her white, beautifully 
set sails — not a strake or an inch of canvas on 
her that he did not know and love. And more 
thought was given by him to the proper peaking 
of a spar and the exact setting of a leech than 
to the profits of the cargo. It was like having 
one’s own country, and his cabin aboard was like 
his own castle — the little stateroom with the 
swinging-lamps, and the compass above the fast- 
ened bed, the row of books, the Aberdeen terrier, 
Duine Uasal, who slept peacefully on the rug, 
and who would go on deck and sniff the wind 
like a connoisseur . . . And there was a manu- 
script poem of his father’s in the Irish letter, 
Leaba Luachra, “The Bed of Rushes,” which he 
had discovered and had framed. And there was 
a prized thing of his boyhood there, a dagger the 
Young Pretender wore in his stocking, and he 
in Highland dress, as he swung toward London 
with pipe and drum. Alan Donn had given it 


THE MOUTH OF HONEY 


119 

to him, and he after getting it on a visit to Argyll. 
“Not only is it Charlie’s, but it ’s a nice handy 
thing, thon!” ... A beautiful piece of work 
it was, perfectly balanced, keen as a razor, 
with a handle of the stag’s horn ... It was 
the only weapon Shane had, and about it 
curled romance and the smoke of dead, royal 
hopes ... A bonny, homy place that cabin, 
peaceful as a garden of bees, when the water 
slipped past the beam. It was like a warm 
hearth-fire to come down there after a strenuous 
time on deck while the sou’wester crashed on the 
Welsh coast. Or in the roll of the Bay of Biscay, 
after a space watching the swinging fields of stars, 
to come down there was to drop into a welcoming 
circle of friends, to throw one’s self down and 
pick up a book, the Laureate’s “In Memoriam” 
or Mr. Thackeray’s latest — and to glance from 
the pages of “Henry Esmond” to Prince Charlie’s 
dagger lying peacefully on the desk . . . How 
near! how near! . . . And up forward the look- 
out paced, or leaned over the bows, humming in 
Gaidhlig: 

'S trie me sealtuinn do*n chnoc is airde 
jyfheac a faic mi fear a Jbhata 
An dtig tu andiu nd’n dtig tu *maireachf 
Is mur dtig tu eader gur truagh mar ta mi! 


120 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


Will you come to-day or will you come to-morrow? 

If you never come how piteous for me! 

Fhir ct bhata, na horo eile! 

Hi horo, fhir a bhata — 

All the nostalgia of the Scottish isles was in 
the minors of that song . . . And it was like a 
lullaby . . . And the wind hummed through the 
rigging . . . And underneath was the flow and 
throb of the immense circulation of the sea . . . 
And overhead the helmsman rang the ship’s 
bell. Tung-tung^ tung — tungy tung-tiing, tung. 
And all was well on board the Ulster Lady. And 
she was his only sweetheart and delight . . . 
until he met La Mielleuse on the road to Aix . . . 


§ 3 

The babble of the Greek merchants in the Cafe 
Turc at last began to bore him, and hiring a 
horse and sort of gig he decided to drive to Aix. 
He had always wished to see the old Provengal 
capital, but somehow the opportunity had always 
passed by, or something . . . But on this bright 
September afternoon it seemed such a pity to 
go back on board ship ... He examined the 
old white horse with interest. 


THE MOUTH OF HONEY 


I2I 


“Are you sure he ’ll take me there? You see 
his — ” Shane wanted to say suspensory liga- 
ments, but his French did n’t quite go that far — 
“his legs — ” 

“But, Monsieur, he has won several races — ” 

“Well, in that event” — Shane grinned, “K-k- 
k-kl” 

The white horse trotted steadily out the Prado, 
the Rue de Rome, trotted out in the country, 
passed Bains de la Mediterranee. A northerdly 
breeze was out rippling the gulf and giving 
promise of autumn, and the heavy heat of the 
Midi had disappeared for the instant. Soon 
they would be plucking the grapes of Provence. 
The olive-trees were black on the white road. 
The white horse trotted on . . . 

There were peasants on the road going into 
town, and townspeople going out to the country 
. . . And children who insulted one another 
shrilly . . . But the white horse plodded on. On 
a stretch of level road he passed a pair talking, 
noting casually that the woman was a lady from 
her carriage, and from his threatening cringe that 
the man was a cad. Italian riffraff of some 
kind . . . 

“But you are mistaken,” the woman was saying. 
“You are making an error.” 

The man’s reply was low, inaudible. 


122 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


“But I assure you, you are mistaken.” 

The white horse plodded on. 

“Please, please” — the woman’s voice followed 
Shane, and there was embarrassed fear in it — 
“please let me pass! You are mistaken.” 

And then again: “I swear to you . . . please 
. . . please!” 

The white horse was surprised at a firm pull 
on his mouth, a crack of the whip, and a turn 
. . . He broke in a lolloping canter . . . 
Shane jumped down . . . 

“Madame, is this man annoying you?” 

^^Sirvase, Signor — ” 

But one look at the woman’s face was sufficient. 
Shane turned on the fawning Sicilian with a snarl. 

“Get to hell out of here, quick!” The man 
shuffled off, walked quickly, ran, disappeared . . . 

The great dark eyes had agony in them. Her 
mouth quivered. Shane knew her knees were 
shaking as she stood. 

“Better get in here. I ’ll drive you home.” 
He helped her into the trap. “I ought to have 
held that fellow,” he grumbled. “Marseilles? 
No! Oh, Les Bains! We’ll be there in a 
minute. You ’re all right now, Madame.” 

“He mistook me — for — somebody else — ” 
She had a voice deep and sweet as a bell, but 


THE MOUTH OF HONEY 


123 


there was a tremor in it now — a marked accent 
of fear, past, but not recovered from. 

He was aware of a great vibrant womanhood 
beside him, as some people are aware of spirits 
in a room, or a mother is aware of a child. He 
was aware, though he hardly saw them, though 
he did n’t know he saw them, of the proud Greek 
beauty of her face, so decisively, so finely chiseled, 
so that it seemed to soar forward, as a bird soars 
into the wind; of the firm, dark ellipsis of the 
eyebrows; of the mouth that quivered, and yet 
in repose would be something for a master of 
line and color to draw; the little hands that 
plucked nervously at the dark silk gown, unquiet 
as butterflies. Her eyes, he knew, were wide 
with fear, great black pupils, deep, immensely 
deep. And be was aware, too, of something 
within her that vibrated, as a stay aboard ship 
vibrates in a gusty, angry wind, or as an ill- 
plucked harpstring will vibrate to and fro, unable 
to stop. 

“ I live here. Monsieur.” 

It was a little white villa, with green jalousies 
such as the Midi has in thousands. He pulled 
up, and she was down before he could help her. 
Her face was quiet now but for the tremor of 
her eyes. 


124 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


“Thank you ever so much,” she said. 

“But this man, Madame. Are you safe? 
Ought not one to — the police?” 

“It was nothing. Monsieur.” She laughed, but 
her voice still quivered. “Some good-for-nothing 
who took me for some one else, whom he had 
seen somewhere else, and knew — something — 
about. Nothing at all, a bagatelle, that might 
happen to any one. But I thank you so much! 
You were going somewhere?” 

“To Aix, Madame.” 

“But your horse is lame 1” 

“So he is, poor old boy! I hadn’t noticed.” 

“Then — adieu, Monsieur, And thanks 

again.” 

He drove back to town. “I shall never get 
to Aix,” he thought. “Perhaps I should n’t go 
. . . Some fate . . .” At the liveiy post he got 
down and examined the horse’s fetlock. 

“So you won several races, eh?” But the 
white horse seemed to shake its head. “No! 
Oh, well, no matter, old codger!” And he 
stroked the long lugubrious muzzle . . . 

And thus, casually as he would light a match 
for his cigarette, casually as he would stumble 
over something, casually as he would pick up a 
book, he met La Mielleuse on the road to 
Aix . . . 


THE MOUTH OF HONEY 


125 


§ 4 

For days now he had been aware of her pres- 
ence in Marseilles without thinking of her — 
aware of her as he was aware of the Hotel de 
Ville, or of the Consigne, as of the obelisk in the 
Place Castellane. These things were facts, had 
their place, and she was a fact. She had be- 
come imprinted on his memory as on a sensitive 
plate. So one dusk on the Prado, as he met 
her, he was no more surprised than if, in their 
appointed places he had come across the obelisk 
or the Consigne or the Hotel de Ville. 

She was standing looking out to sea, and 
the little wind from Africa blew against her, 
and made her seem poised for flight, like a 
bird. 

And because he saw no reason why he 
shouldn’t and because he was direct and simple 
as the sea itself, he went to her. 

“Are you a sea-captain’s wife?” 

“No, Monsieur.” She seemed to know him 
without turning. Perhaps she recognized his 
voice. 

“I saw you looking out toward the Pharo. I 


126 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


thought perhaps you were waiting for some one 
to come home on a ship.” 

“No,” she said slowly. “No. I — I come 
here some dusks, and look out to sea. There is 
something. It seems to pull me. The great 
waters and the blinking lighthouse — I seem to 
stand out of myself. And miles and miles and 
miles away there is a new land with a new life 
where one might go . . . and begin . . . What 
is in me seems to struggle to go out there, but 
it never gets more than an inch or so outside. 
But even that . . . And the wind ... so clean. 
Are you a sailor?” 

“Yes, I am a sailor.” 

“It is very beautiful and very pure, the sea?” 

“Yes, sometimes it is very beautiful. I think 
it is always beautiful. And it must be pure — I 
never thought ... It is strong, and sometimes 
cruel. It heals, and sometimes it is very lonely. 
One never quite understands. It is so big.” 

“Yes, so big and strong . . . and it heals. 
One seems, one’s self, one’s little cares, to be so 
little.” 

And they were silent for a while. 

“But perhaps I intrude, Madame. Your hus- 
band ” 

“My husband is dead in Algiers these six 
years.” 


THE MOUTH OF HONEY 


127 


“I am sorry.” 

Everything was hushed, the tideless sea, the 
silent wind. Behind them, and still about them, 
hung the strange dusk of Pontius Pilate. Before 
them blazed Marseilles. 

“You are married?” 

“I was married.” 

“Then your wife is — dead?” 

“Yes, Madame, she is dead.” 

“You grieve?” 

“No, I do not grieve.” 

“Did you not love her?” 

“I loved some one I thought was she. It 
was n’t she.” 

There was another instant’s silence as they 
walked. 

“Ah, I think I understand,” she said. And 
they walked into the blaze of the city. She 
paused for a moment. 

“Will you pardon me for asking things like 
that? I don’t usually . . . But in the dusk I 
seem to be another person. . . .” 

“No. In the light we are other per- 
sons.” 

“Ah,” she smiled understandingly. “You are 
going to your ship now?” 

There was a finality in her voice. It was more 
an affirmation than a question. 


128 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


“Madame,” Shane said, “will you please let 
me see you to your door?” 

She looked at him for an intense second, and a 
little cloud of — was it fear? — flitted across her 
face. 

“Madame, there are thieves and villains of 
all kinds abroad. You have had one experience. 
Please let me protect you from a possible second.” 

“If you wish.” She smiled. He called a 
carriage. 

In the light she was a different person. Along 
the sea-shore walking in the dusk, she was a 
troubled phantom, a thing of beauty, but without 
flesh, without the trappings of clothes — as if \ 
spirit had been imprisoned in cold white statuary. 
But now she was a beautiful woman, gravely gay, 
a woman of the world, not of the great world, 
perhaps, and not of the half-world — just a 
woman aware of and experienced in life. And 
poised. 

“You are English?” 

“Not English. Irish.” 

Poised she was, but she was like a player play- 
ing a game, and the breaks against her. He 
knew the smile. He had seen it often on Alan 
Bonn’s face, playing in some of the great title 
matches. Four holes to go, and he must better 
par. It ’s all right, the smile said; there ’s noth- 









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THE MOUTH OF HONEY 


129 


ing wrong. But in Alan Bonn’s was the glint of 
a naked knife, and in this woman’s eyes, down 
deep, veiled, but ill concealed, was appeal. 

They stopped at her house. He helped her 
out. 

Adieu, Monsieur, And again a thousand 
thanks.” 

*^Oetait un vrai plaisir.E* 

“Monsieur I” 

“Madame!” 

The cabman looked surprised when ordered 
to return. He turned and regarded his fare with 
amazement. 

^*Quai de la Fraternite** I said. 

*^Hup, alors!” The cabby shrugged his shoul- 
ders. And they trotted ploddingly through the 
dusk of Pontius Pilate to the burning cloud which 
was Marseilles . . . 


§5 

He knew he should meet her again, and where 
he should meet her, and he did, on the Prado. 
He knew when. In the Midi dusk. A touch of 
mistral was out, and the wind blew seaward. 
She was sitting down, looking toward Africa. 


130 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


“You oughtn’t to come out here alone,” he 
said. “Marseilles is a bad port.” 

“I know,” she said. “I know. But it draws 
me, this spot. You leave soon?” she asked. 

“In a few days.” 

“But you will be back.” 

“Yes, I will be back,” he told her. “I don’t 
know why, but I think I ’d rather die than not 
see Marseilles again. It is a second home, and 
yet I know so few people here.” 

“If one has the temperament, and conditions 
are — as they should be — Marseilles is wonder- 
ful.” 

“One could be happy here.” 

“Yes,” and she sighed. 

The spell of the archaic dusk came on him 
again; a dusk old as the world. About them 
brooded the welter of passion and romance that 
Marseilles is. Once it was a Phocaean village, 
and hook-nosed Afric folk had stepped through 
on long, thin feet. And then had come the 
Greeks, with their broad, clear brows, their gray 
eyes. And further back the hairy Gauls had 
crept, snarling like dogs. And Greece died. 
And came the clash of the Roman legions, ruth- 
less fighting hundreds, who saw, did massive 
things. And Rome died. And over the sea 
came the Saracens, their high heads, their hard. 


THE MOUTH OF HONEY 131 

bronzed bodies, their scarlet mouths. And they 
conquered and builded and lived . . . And were 
hurled back . . . Years hummed by, and passion 
died not, or romance, and it was from Marseilles 
that a battalion had come to Paris gates singing 
the song that Rouget de Lisle had written in Stras- 
burg: 

Allans , enfants de la Patrie, 

Le jour de gloire est arrive. 

And passed that day, and came another, when 
a handful of grizzled veterans left the gates to 
join their brothers and meet the exiled emperor 
. . . Passion and romance ! Their colors were 
in Marseilles still . . . Over in Arise des Cata- 
lans were n’t there the remains of the village of 
the sea-Gipsies, who had come none knew whence? 

. . . And along the gulf there were settlements 
of Saracen blood — les Maures, the Provengals 
called them . . . and the shadow of Pontius 
Pilate wild-eyed in the dusk . . . 

“It ’s strange” — her voice came gently to him, 
— “but I can hear you think.” 

“And I can feel your silence,” he said. “Just 
feel — you — being silent — ” 

The wind whipped up, grew shrill, grew cold. 
She shivered in her thin frock. 

“You are becoming cold.” 


132 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


“I am cold.” 

“Then had n’t you better go home — to your 
house ?” 

She rose silently. It seemed to him somehow 
that she had put herself under his care. She waf 
like some gentle little craft that had anchored 
humbly under the lee of a great ship. He felt 
somehow that she was a thing to be protected. 
He hailed a carriage, and she made no protest — 
all the time under his lee, so needful of protection. 
It was a shock when they came into the lights of 
Marseilles to find a proud, grave woman there 
and not a shrinking, wide-eyed child . . . Her 
face, poised for flight, like a bird’s wing; the 
beautiful, half-opened mouth, the hands, the little 
feet in their shoes. She was like some beautiful 
shy deer. And somewhere hovered disaster, 
like a familiar spirit . . . And yet she was smil- 
ing .. . 

At the door he made to bid her good-by. 

“Would you — would you care to come in?” 

“Why — why, yes.” He sent the carriage 
away. 

He followed her up the path to the little villa 
and with her entered the house. There were no 
servants to answer the door; she let herself in 
with a latch-key, but so scrupulously clean was the 


THE MOUTH OF HONEY 


133 


place, so furnished in its way, that there must 
have been servants somewhere. The living-room 
into which she conducted him was spacious and a 
little bare, though not bare for the Midi — a 
plain white room, high in the ceiling, with chairs 
of good line. Here was a big piano, here a fire- 
place, here a few paintings, colorful landscapes, 
on the wall. Together they lit candles. 

“Back of here is a garden,” she said, “where 
I spend most of the day. And I have a cook” 
— she smiled — “and a maid who waits on me. 
And yet I go out to walk on the Prado . . 

Shane was n’t surprised. It was n’t home, 
somehow. The room was like a setting in a play, 
here light, here shadow . . . The paintings, the 
instrument of music, the chairs, they were not 
things owned and loved. They were properties 
... In the golden candle-light, as she moved, 
she was like an actress of great restraint. Every 
step, posture, gesture seemed to have an occult 
significance. Even her bedroom, away off some- 
where, he felt, was not a place where one slept 
easily and dreamed. It would be like the dress- 
ing-room of some woman mummer ... It was 
all like a play, of which he was seeing a fragment 
from the wings . . . What was it all about? 
Who was she? And why was his heart a-flutter? 


134 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


She had taken off her hat, and her hair was 
coiled close about her exquisite head. White and 
black, regular, significant, antique — like a cameo 
of some Greek woman, long dead. She stood 
by a little table, one hand on it, the other like * 
some butterfly against her gown ... It was 
like a pose — but unconscious, he knew, utterly 
unconscious . . . 

“Tell me,” she said, “why did you speak to 
me?” 

“I don’t know,” he said, “I just spoke.” 

“You weren’t” — her words were weighty, 
picked — “looking for a flirtation with a pretty 
woman?” 

“Why, no. Of course not,” he answered. “I 
never thought — ” 

“No. No, you did n’t.” She decided for her- 
self. 

She came toward him suddenly in the candle- 
light. Stood before him. 

“Tell me, who are you? What are you?” 
There was a tragic appeal in her face. “Where 
do you come from? Where are you going?” 

“I don’t know.” His throat was dry, his heart 
pounding. “A few days ago I was a contented 
man, unhappy but contented. And now I don’t 
know.” 


THE MOUTH OF HONEY 


135 


“And I don’t know who I am.” Her mouth 
quivered. “I am two people — three people.” 

They looked at each other with a sort of agony, 
as though they had lost something dear to each, 
and to both of them. They were immensely in- 
timate. He put out his hand . . . 

“Poor . . . poor ...” 

Their hands touched, and there seemed to rush 
between them, through them, some powerful cur- 
rent; and how it happened he did not know, but 
they were kissing each other . . . He thought 
with a queer shock, was a woman’s mouth so soft, 
so sweet, so vibrant? He hadn’t known. And 
was he kissing her? And how had it happened? 
It was impossible ! ... Or was he dreaming? 

. . . Or was he — was he dead? . . . 

She released herself from him for an instant, 
putting her hands on his shoulders, her eyes look- 
ing into his eyes . . . 

“What is your name?” 

“Campbell. Shane Campbell.” 

“Campbell. Shane Campbell. Shane — Shane 
Campbell. Mine is Claire-Anne — Claire-Anne 
Godey.” 


136 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


§ 6 

It seemed to him as he went to Les Bains that 
next evening that the world had somehow changed 
into another dimension, so much clearer the air 
was, so much brighter the stars . . . He had dis- 
covered a higher, more rarefied stratum of life, 
in the dim, keen atmosphere of which things took 
on incomparable beauty and mystery, so that the 
water on his left hand, unseen, yet so blue, was 
not the Gulf of Lyons, but the whole Mediter- 
ranean, which washed Genoa and Naples and 
Sicily, and the little islands of the Greeks, and the 
barbaric shores of Africa, Morocco, and Algiers; 
and Gibraltar, where the English were, like an 
armed sentry in a turret. The ships in the harbor 
were not ships of commerce, but stately entities, 
each whispering to each in the shush-shush of 
water and wind, telling of the voyages they had 
made, adventurous as sturgeons. Even from the 
mud-and-rush huts along the sea-shore came the 
note of brave romance. And the softly sing- 
ing trees ! And in the great amphitheater of the 
woods no longer the shade of Pontius Pilate 
gnawed his bitten nails, but more gallant pres- 


THE MOUTH OF HONEY 


137 


ences were, gray-eyed Greek women, with proud 
composed faces and eloquent hands, and Saracens 
calmly awaiting the morrow’s battle, and trouba- 
dours puzzling keenly for a rime . . . They 
were not colored thoughts, but sentient presences. 
Spirit and thought had united in him into a being 
like a bird, leaving the earth, and flying into a 
realm of ancient forgotten beauty, spirit being the 
will, and thought the vibrating wing . . . How 
harmonious everything was, the stars, the earth, 
the sea, the people ! How clear it had all be- 
come I How one ! . . . 

He came to her in her garden where she sat be- 
neath a tree. Around, the cicadas whirred in the 
speaking trees. Zig-zig~zig-zig. But they were 
no longer strident. They seemed but a vibration 
of the high atmosphere in which he was . . . 

“Claire-Anne I Claire-Anne . . 

“Yes . . . yes, lover . . 

“Claire-Anne I” 

She stood up as he took her lovely, pale hands. 
There was no shame to her glance, nothing but 
a wonderful frankness, her eyes going to his like 
brave winged things. 

“Claire-Anne, I want to ask you something.” 

“Yes . . . Lover ...” 

“Claire-Anne, when will you marry me?” 

Her hands never quivered, but he was aware 


138 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


that her mouth did, in the high diluted starlight. 

“Why do you want to marry me ? Is it because 
. . . ? Do you feel bound? . . . or . . . 
just why?” 

“I want to be with you, Claire-Anne.” 

“Then — dearest, does it matter to go before 
the mayor and arrange about property? And to 
go before a priest and make promises — to God! 

... Sit down, lover; sit down with me here, in 
the dusk, under the tree.” 

She still clasped both his hands. He might 
have been talking to some beautiful disembodied 
spirit, as Pontius Pilate was a poor panic-stricken 
spirit, or to something he had conjured out of his 
head, but for her firm, warm hands. To-night it 
was she had strength . . . 

“Dearest, promises are so easy to make. I 
have made promises, oh, so many promises I . . . 
And life or destiny . . . And when you can’t 
keep them, your heart breaks. You know nothing 
of me — Shane ...” 

“I don’t want to know; I just want you, Claire- 
Anne I” 

“You must know something. I was just a girl, 
well brought up, well educated ... I dreamed 
of being a great actress. I was an actress, 
but I was . . . manquee . . . did n’t succeed, 
get success . . . And then I married, and my 


THE MOUTH OF HONEY 


139 


husband died . . . And here I am . . . And 
there are other things you must n’t know . . . 
Not that they are dear to me; oh, no! . . . but 
you must never hear them . . . O Shane, if 
seven years ago . . . But Destiny or life 
would n’t let us. And now we can only cheat him, 
and that only for a while . . . Because Destiny 
is all-seeing and jealous and cruel . . . Only for 
a while, a sweet while. ...” 

“But, Claire-Anne, I don’t understand — ” 

“Don’t understand, don’t, my lover. Don’t 
anything . . . Only let me give all I have, can 
give to you, and let me take what you care to give 
in return, only that . . . O Shane, we are two 
people in a dark wood, and it is lonely and terrify- 
ing . . . And we have met, and our hands . . . 
se sont serrees . . . gripped and held . . . And 
we are n’t lonely any more, or afraid. And you 
have a picture in your mind of me, a beautiful, 
warm picture . . . But if the night passed, and 
we came to the meadow-lands . . . O Shane, 
don’t let ’s go into the light — not into the open, 
not into the light . . . Oh, no! no!” 

“But, Claire-Anne ...” 

“Come closer, Shane. The night is empty. 
There are only we two in the world . . . Come 
cios«. Closer. Closer still ...” 


140 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


§ 7 

He was sitting in her garden one sunset, under 
the mulberry-tree, and she had gone into the house 
for a minute, moving with the firm, gracious walk 
of hers that was like the firm swimming of swans. 
In the little hush of sunset, and she gone, there 
came a sudden knowledge to him. . . . For a 
space of time, how long he knew not, he was in 
an Antrim study . . . Without, the sun had gone 
down, and there was the purple, twilight water, 
and the gentle calling of the cricket . . . And 
within was a gray head that had fallen on a book 
. . . fallen . . . fallen as the sun went down. 

“Why, Uncle Robin!” he called. 

Then came a great gush of tears to his heart 
and eyes . . . 

She came from the house, as again he became 
cognizant of the Midi garden instead of the An- 
trim glen, of the Mediterranean instead of the 
waters of Moyle. She came down the dusky 
pathway. At a little distance she saw his face. 
She stopped short, her face white . . . 

“Shane! Shane! what is wrong? Are you 
hurt? 111?” 


THE MOUTH OF HONEY 


141 

“My Uncle Robin is dead, Claire-Anne.” 

She looked at him for a little instant, not quite 
understanding. She came to him swiftly as a 
swallow. She sat close beside him. Her arm 
went through his. Her hands clasped his hands. 

“Why didn’t you tell me, heart?” she whis- 
pered. 

“I just knew this instant. I felt, saw . . . 
We were that close . . . my Uncle Robin! 
Beannacht De ar a anam! God’s blessing on his 
soul!” 

She never spoke. She never stirred. She 
hardly breathed. She was just there, her hands, 
firm and strong, on his, did he want her. 

“Was it ... a hard death, Shane?” 

“No; I seemed to see him, asleep, among his 
books.” 

“His books were his friends . . . you told 

me . . . 

“Yes, dear. His life was with them.” 

“And he was n’t a young man, your Uncle 
Robin?” 

“Eight and sixty years of age.” 

“Is it so ill, heart, to go quickly, quietly, with 
your friends about you, on an autumn afternoon?” 

“No, dear, not ill. Very rightly ... I think. 
But there is something . . . Something is gone 
from the world, like a fine tree from a garden 


142 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


. . . And he was awfuP dear to me, my Uncle 
Robin ... It will be a hard thing to go home, 
and he not there to come and ask: ‘Are you all 
right, laddie? You’re no sick?’ Claire-Anne, 
I ’ll be thinking long . . .” 

She sat with him in silence in the garden, and 
after a little while got up and went without a 
word . . . And he sat in the garden thinking to 
himself, had he been lax to Uncle Robin in any 
way? He might have written oftener. It 
was n’t fair to have kept the old man worried and 
he an apprentice at sea. Yes, he could have 
Written, could have written oftener. And 
thought more. And there were books he might 
have brought the old man — books from ’Frisco 
and New York and Naples. The book-stores 
were so far from the quays, and he had put it off. 
And he could have so easily . . . When one is 
young, one is so thoughtless ... A message 
from somewhere ran into his consciousness like a 
ripple of code-flags : ‘It does n’t matter, dear 
laddie. Don’t be taking on. Don’t be blaming 
yourself. You were the dear lad . . . and I ’m 
happy . . .’ 

Ah, yes, but a great tree was gone from the 
garden. An actuality had been converted into 
thought and emotion, and thought and emotion 
may be all that endure, and an actuality be unreal 


THE MOUTH OF HONEY 


143 


. . . but an actuality is so warm ... so reassur- 
ing .. . 

He rose and went toward the house, and as he 
walked he met her . . . 

“Claire-Anne, do you mind if I go back to the 
ship ? . . . Somehow, I ’m a little lost . . 

“There is a carriage waiting for you outside.” 

For the first time it occurred to him that in 
this occult experience she had not uttered one 
jarring note. She had not asked questions, nor 
had she tried to argue with him, as other women 
would have, telling him he fancied all this. Nor 
had she bothered him with vain, unwelcome senti- 
ment. She had just — stood by, as at sea. And 
how swiftly she had divined his need of privacy, 
of his own ship ! 

“There are none like you in this world, Claire- 
Anne,” he told her. 

“I am what you make me, Shane — ^what you 
need of me.” Her hand sought his in the stilly 
dusk. “Come back only when you are ready 
dearest . . . dearest ... I am here! Always 
here!” 


§ 8 

Though she never said so, yet he knew she 


144 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


wanted to go on board the ship that was so 
much of his life, and one day he had her rowed 
across to the Ulster Lady. He smiled as he saw 
how firmly she got on board, though ships were 
unknown to her. Queer, how she never lost 
dignity, grace. And it was so easy for a woman 
to look silly, undignified, getting on board ship. 
She never disappointed him . . . 

She mused over the sweet line of the schooner, 
the tapering masts, the snug canvas,^ the twinkling 
brass. The wake of a passing paddle-steamer 
made the boat pitch gently. It was like breathing. 

“She is so much a pretty lady,” Claire-Anne 
said. “So much like you, Shane, in a way. She 
might be a young sister — a young, loved sister. 
And where is your place on board when she 
sails?” 

He pointed her out the space behind wheel and 
binnacle. 

“Whenever there ’s any need, I ’m there, just 
there.” 

“And Shane, great waves like you see in pic- 
tures — great enormous waves, does she stand 
those?” 

“Yes, great waves, like you see in pictures, 
she stands those. Drives through them, and over 
them, and under them.” 

“And Solomon said” — she was just thinking 


THE MOUTH OF HONEY 


145 


aloud — “that he could n’t understand the way of 
a ship on the sea. And he was immensely wise. 
Dearest ... it can’t be just wood and canvas, a 
ship . . . power and grace and beauty ... It ’s 
like great people . . .” 

“They ’re as different as people are, Claire- 
Anne.” 

“Are they, Shane? I knew they were n’t . . . 
just things.” 

He took her below in the dusk of his cabin. 
She filled the space like some gracious green tree. 

“And here is where I live on board ship.” 

The Aberdeen terrier came forward to greet 
her, his tail waving gently, his ears up, his brown 
eyes grave and warm. 

*^Duine uasal! Duine uasal!^* she knelt to 
him. 

“You remember?” He minded he had told 
her casually of the dog’s name. 

“Of course I remember! Shane, what does 
Duine uasal mean?” 

^^Gentilhomme/^ he translated. 

“He has the eyes,” she said. 

The framed manuscript of his father’s verses 
caught her eyes, and she looked at him in inquiry. 

“What is it?” 

“A poem of my father’s, in Gaidhlig, Claire- 
Anne. ‘The Bed of Rushes.’ ” 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


“How queer the letters are ! Slim and grace- 
ful, and powerful, too. Would you read it, 
Shane?” 

^^Leaha luachra>^* he read, “a bed of rushes, 
hhi fum areir, was beneath me last night, agas do 
chaitheas amach e le hanaghadh an lae^ and I 
threw it out with the whitening of day. Thainic 
mo chead grddh le mo thaohh, my hundred loves 
came to my side; guala ee qualainn, shoulder to 
shoulder, agas heal re heal, and mouth to mouth.” 

“Now I know you better, Shane.” 

“How, dearest?” 

“I know how you come by your — ^your sense of 
beauty, Shane. It ’s from your father. You 
have it just as he had. But he could say and you 
can’t, Shane. You have it, but it does n’t come 
out that way. It comes out in the sailing of the 
ship, Shane. You must sail beautifully. Shane, 
I should love to see you sail.” 

With a quick movement she dropped on her 
knees, and her beautiful dark head on the pillow 
of his bed. 

“Could n’t you take me with you once, Shane, 
when you sail? Away on just one voyage?” 

“Of course I could, dearest, and will.” 

“Would you, my heart? Would you?” She 
stood up again, and swift tears came to her eyes. 

“I could n’t come,” she said. 


THE MOUTH OF HONEY 


147 


“But, Claire-Anne — ” 

“No,” she said. She turned her back to him, 
so that he should n’t see her face, and her voice 
vibrated. “No, Shane dear. No. You go to 
sea and sail your ships, and take care of them in 
the tempest and coax them in light weather. 
And go from port to port, watching the strange 
cities and the peoples, and seeing into them, with 
, , . tes yeux d* enfant . . . your eyes of a 
child . . . And have your life, free, big, clean 
. . . And just in a corner . , , le plus petit 
coin . . . keep me ... so when you come to 
Marseilles, you will come up the garden path in 
the dusk, and call, ‘Claire-Anne !’ ” There was 
something like a sob from her. “Just say, 
‘Claire-Anne’ . . 

She turned around and caught his hands for a 
minute, looked at him, smiled, laughed . . . 
From his desk she picked up the Young Pre- 
tender’s dagger. 

“What is this for, Shane? Is this yours?” 

“Mine now, Claire-Anne; but it was — some 
one else’s once. My Uncle Alan, Alan Bonn, 
gave it to me.” 

“Yes? . . 

“It belonged once to Charles Edward Stuart, 
the Young Pretender. He wore it at his knee 
in ’45. Do you remember, Claire-Anne? He 


148 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


landed in Scotland and advanced on England, 
and got as far as Derby at the head of the 
Scottish clans and Jacobite gentlemen. ‘Black 
Friday’ they called it in London.” 

“But he never got to London.” 

“No, he never got to London. Crash and 
whir of battle, and when the smoke cleared, 
there were the gallant Highland clansmen 
scattered, and the sturdy English nobles, and the 
bonny Irish gentlemen. And a king on the 
run !” 

“And, Shane, what happened to him after 
that?” 

“I think — my history may not be right, but I 
think he spent the rest of his life a pensioner of 
the king of France, playing petty politics, drink- 
ing, and accepting love from romantic women, and 
loyalty from the beaten clans.” 

“What a pity, Shane! What a pity!” 

“That he failed, dearest? I don’t know.” 

“Not that he failed, Shane! No! The most 
gallant fail, nearly always fail, for they take the 
greatest odds. But that he lived too long, Shane 
. . . the high moment gone . . .” 

She looked at the dagger again that had once 
snuggled to Prince Tearloch’s knee, hefted it, ca- 
ressed it. 


THE MOUTH OF HONEY 


149 


“Shane dearest, why did n’t he use his own 
knife to — set himself free?” 

“I don’t know.” 

“I think I know.” 

She faced him suddenly. 

“Shane, why did n’t somebody do it for him?” 

“I suppose they could n’t see the end, Claire- 
Anne. They could n’t foresee the king of 
France’s charity, the tricked women, the wine- 
stained cards. There ’s many the Scots gentle- 
men who would have — set him free.” 

“But they did n’t, Shane dearest. It seems — 
Destiny must always win. Shane, what is that 
poem in Gaidhlig about the world, the verses 
you once said?” 

*'Treasgair an saoghal, agus tigeann an garth mar smal. 
Alaistir, Casar, 's an mead do bhi d"a bpairt 
Ta an Theamhair na fear agas fedch an Traoi mar ta — 
Life goes conquering on. The winds forever blow 
Alexander, Caesar, and the crash of their fighting men 
Tara is grass, and see how Troy is low — ” 

He stopped with a little shock, for her face was 
a mask of tears. 

“Dearest, dearest, it ’s only an old, sad story. 
It has nothing to do with us. Claire-Anne — ” 

“Is any story old, Shane? Is any story ever 
new? Is n’t it always the same story?” 


150 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


She looked at the dagger for an instant more, 
and put it down with a little sob. 

“Poor gentleman!” 


§ 9 

From his cabin below he could hear the Belfast 
mate roaring at the helmsman: 

“What kind of steering do you call that? 
Look at your damned wake. Like an eel’s wrig- 
gle. Keep her full, and less of your damned 
luffin’.” 

“Keep her full, sir!” the steersman repeated. 

“Look at your foretopsail! Bouse it, blast 
ye! Bouse it! You Skye cutthroats!” 

If the nor’easter held, Shane calculated, he 
could run through Biscay full, come into the 
Mediterranean on a broad reach, and jam her 
straight at Marseilles. About him was the 
tremor as she took the head seas. Plunge! 
Tremble! Dash on! Overhead the squeaking 
of the sheets, the squeal of blocks, the thrap- 
thrap’thrap of the lee halyards, the melancholy 
whining of the gulls. With luck he would be 
in Marseilles within the week. And if the wind 
swung westward after he left Gibraltar to port. 


THE MOUTH OF HONEY 


— 

he would nip off hours, a day even. And every 
hour counted until the moment he went up the 
dusky path and called, “Claire-Anne !” 

He had never before driven the Ulster Lady 
as he was driving her now. Before, he had been 
content to get what he could out of her, coaxing 
her, nursing her, as a trainer does a horse he 
is fond of; but now he was riding her like a 
jockey intent on winning a race. On deck the 
crew wondered what had got into the old man, 
as they called him, for all his twenty-eight years. 

“Before, he was a sailor,” the isles crew com- 
plained. “Is he now a merchant at last? A 
Righ is truagh! O King, the pity!” 

But it was not interest in cargoes that com- 
pelled him; it was the thought of a face like the 
wing of a bird, ready to soar. The dark, 
gracious face, with the eyes where emotion 
swirled like a mill-race, the parted ruddy lips — 
La Mielleuse — mouth of honey. And the word 
he must not say aloud, like some occult word of 
magic until a certain moment should come: 

“Claire-Anne!” Just “Claire-Anne!” 

Before he had left Marseilles he had not been 
able to think of her, to weigh what happened, 
to understand. Things were too close. But at 
sea, and in the dusk of the Antrim glen, and in 
Belfast and Liverpool, he had had time to view 


152 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


the incident in perspective; to stand aside, as one 
stands back from a picture, and appreciate the 
color, the line, the truth; to see that that rich 
purple, that splash of orange, that rippling, rich 
silver-gray are not spots like flowers, but a defi- 
nite design . . . 

In Antrim he had remembered Dancing Town, 
the vision of Fiddlers’ Green. Fourteen years 
before I 

And now that he remembered, it seemed to him 
foolish not to have known he was sailing some- 
where. He was always sailing . . . And un- 
expectedly, after he had given up all hope, under 
his lee bow had risen suddenly Fiddlers’ Green 
. . . Once before he thought he had made port 
there, but that only made this island the true 
one . . . For there were always two things, and 
the second was right . . . False dawn and dawn; 
the False Cape and Cape Horn; the Southern 
Crosses, the false and true . . . 

And he would tell her this, when he met her 
again, of how he had been thinking, and dis- 
covered her to be the true life . . . 

The wife he had married and buried seven 
years before he thought of now; she was the 
second woman he had known, his mother the 
first. And from the cold precipice of his mother 
he had fled ino the flinty fields of Moyra Dolan 


THE MOUTH OF HONEY 


153 


. . . He felt a little sorry for the boy he was 
seven years before — so young, so gallant, so 
wrong . . . He had thought that all there was 
in life was a home to return to, a wife, children 
. . . He had wanted an acre of land in the sun, 
where all the world was his. When one was 
young, one knew so little . . . Wisdom came 
with the lapping of the waves, and years of quiet 
thinking under the gigantic stars ... A plot 
of land he had wanted then, and now he had 
the stars, they belonging more to him than to 
the astrologers who conned them, the fields, more 
than to the tillers who cultivated them, the sea 
than to the fishermen who trawled . . . He was 
one with everything, understanding everything, 
its immense harmony . . . From hard earth 
and wet sea he had arisen on swift, dark pin- 
ions untP he had been one with the spirit 
that infused all ^arth and sea and sky holding 
the multitudinous atoms in One with immense 
will and scheme . . . And it was she who had 
given them to him — Claire-Annv. • . . the wings 
of the morning . . . The flutter of her white 
hands . . . the eyes that looked and drooped, 
looked, drooped . . . the little catch in he‘i 
breath ... 

His life opened before him now, like a fair 
seaway. About his appointed tasks he would go 


154 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


in his appointed life . . . sailing ships with 
needed cargoes ... a despatch messenger 
for the peoples of the world over the vast 
solitudes of sea . . . doing his work well and 
willingly . . . and asking no reward but that the 
bird of dusk, the mouth of honey, be his to love 
and be loved by ... to melt with and be one 
in occult alchemy of soul and mind and body . . . 
to get strength and knowledge, and the under- 
standing which is more than strength and 
knowledge . . . 

He was twenty-eight, she was twenty-five. 
There were twenty years before them still, twenty 
years of love and understanding, and then 
a strange happy twilight, like the dusk of Antrim, 
that gives way hardly to the short night . . . 
Some day she would marry him and come to his 
house . . . some day when something that was 
wrong in her heart was righted and forgotten, 
something he had no wish to intrude upon, so 
closely did she conceal it . . . There was a 
locked, haunted room in her heart . . . poor 
heart! . . . but one day the presence would be 
exercised, and the room swept and garnished . • . 
Some day she would marry him, and he would 
bring her home to Ulster . . . And who better 
than she could understand the springy heather and 
the blue smoke-reek, the crickets of the evening 


THE MOUTH OF HONEY 


155 


and the curlew’s call? And in the house where 
his mother was cold and arrogant, would be a 
warm and gracious lady . . . Claire-Anne I . . . 

God! he was thinking long to be in Marseilles 
again, to go up the dusky path, to call, ‘‘Claire- 
Anne !” 

The big Belfast mate larruped down the short 
companionway. 

“How ’s she doing, Mr. McKinstry?” 

“She ’s doing fine, sir. If I may say so, there ’s 
not a better boat sails the water, not the Sover- 
eign of the Seas itself. Nor a better crew to 
handle things, not on board the king’s yacht.” 

“Nor a better mate, Mr. McKinstry.” 

“Ah, well, sir; we do wir best.” 

He tumbled on deck again, and Shane could 
hear him roar from amidships: 

“Lay forward, a couple of you damned 
farmers, and see if you can’t get more out of 
those jibs. Faster! faster! You’re as slow as 
the grace of God at a miser’s funeral ... If 
I only had a crew . . 


§ 10 

She stopped in her swift flight to him 


156 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


through the dusk of the Midi garden. 

‘‘Dearest, why is your face so white? Your 
hands bruised?” 

“The consul said something to me — about you 
— and I knocked him down.” 

“Oh I” she said, a shocked little cry, and : “Oh !” 
a drawn-out wail of pain. “Why did you strike 
him?” 

“Because he lied about you.” 

Her face was turned from him, in the dusk of 
the crickets, toward the wooded amphitheater, 
where dead Pontius roved wild-eyed in the dusk, 
where Lazarus tossed uneasily in his second 
sleep, where the Greeks lay in alien soil, and the 
shadows of Roman legionaries looked puzzled 
at the flat sea, not recognizing busy Tiber — her 
back was to him, her head up in pain, her nerve- 
wrenched hands uneasy, white . . . 

“He did n’t lie,” she said at last. “Oh, you ’d 
have known it sooner or later. No I no! He 
did n’t lie.” 

“Claire-Anne !” 

“He did n’t lie. I was just a fool to think — 
oh, well, he didn’t lie. No, no!” she repeated. 
“He did n’t lie.” She threw out a hand hope- 
lessly. “He did n’t lie.” 

He went up to her in the dusk, put his hands 


THE MOUTH OF HONEY 


157 


gently on her shoulders. The quivering frame 
became still suddenly, with a greater nervousness. 
She was like a deer ready to bound away . . . 

“I don ’t see what I could have done, Claire- 
Anne. But — can I do anything now?” 

She turned toward him suddenly. Her face 
was a mask of pain — and surprise. 

“Then you have n’t grown cold to me, un- 
merciful, ... or gross?” . 

“Why, no, Claire-Anne !” 

“And you know.” 

“I — know, but I don’t understand ...” 

She gave a queer, little shuddering cry, half 
laugh, half sob. She moved over to the seat by 
the whispering mulberry-tree, and dropped in it, 
her hands covering her face. 

“All the wrong,” she said, “that people call 
wrong I ’ve done I did n’t mind. But the one 
decent thing — of loving you — that ’s kept me 
awake all the time you were away. It ’s been 
like a sin, letting you love me. The rest was 
destiny, but this one thing was — I.” 

She suddenly raised her face, her eyes shining 
through the humid mask of it. 

“Would you — could you — understand?” 

“Tell me, Claire-Anne, what you want to.” 

She drew a short gasping breath, turned her 


158 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


head away, looked up, turned it away again, 
paused for breath, gripped his hand by the 
wrist ... 

“I ... I ... I was the child of actors, and 
they died, and there was enough money to bring 
me up and educate me, and give me my chance on 
the stage . . . And I was n’t good enough . . . 
I was too much myself. Could n’t quite be other 
characters. I don’t know if you understand . . . 
But . . . then a man got infatuated with me and 
married me . . . And later he wished he ’d 
married a — comfortable woman with a fortune 
. . . And then he died and left me . . . not 
very much . . . But that was not the reason 
. . . I was left, how do you say? . . . stranded. 
I had no career, no husband, no child, no busi- 
ness. France, it is not easy . . . not easy any- 
where . . . Friends? People are too busy . . . 
And I was . . .' just there . . . And all around 
me life bubbled and flowed, and I was . . . not 
dead, not alive . . . and alone ... I might 
have been a leper, but even lepers have colonies, 
and some one to be kind to them . . . not dead, 
not alive . . . and alone. I was so young 
... It was unfair. ' Life was everywhere like 
a sparkling wine ... but where I was, was 
flat . . . 

“And then — then I met a man ... it was 


THE MOUTH OF HONEY 


159 


pleasant for a while — to have some one to talk 
to, to go around with. It ’s so pleasant to laugh. 
You don’t know how pleasant until you have n’t 
laughed for a long time . . . He did n’t want to 
marry . . . and in the end it was a choice of — 
oh, well ... or going back to being not dead, 
not alive . . . and I could n’t go, just could n’t. 
And he gave me presents of money . . . And 
then he got married. I don’t blame him . . . 
a comfortable woman with a fortune . . . but 
I was n’t left for long . . . Where one goes, 
others always follow . . . There ’s a sort of 
. . . sentier intuitif, a psychic path . . . 

“And I was n’t so ashamed ... I was a little 
glad I had a place in the world ... a work 
even . . . And every one might despise me 
... I had a place ... I was no longer not 
dead, not alive ... I was even thankful for 
that . . . Until I met you with your — terrible 
courtesy, with your understanding . . . My 
head and my heart melted, and my body, too, 
and all had been so firm, so decided . . . And 
I dreamed that I could snatch a while from des- 
tiny . . . But — ^you see . . . What the consul 
said was true, so . . . dearest — but I must n’t 
ever call you dearest again.” 

“Claire-Anne !” 

“Well, then — dearest, you see why I could n’t 


i6o 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


marry you when you asked.” She laughed bit- 
terly. “If you had only known ...” 

He took a terrible grip on himself, faced her, 
looked at her. 

“Claire- Anne, will you marry me now?” 

“I don’t know why you say it, but I know one 
thing: you are true. And I thank you . . . but 
please don’t make me cry any more. I have 
cried so much when you were away ... If only 
five years ago before I was . . . estropiee . . . 
crippled . . . 

“Destiny ...” 


8 II 

Dusk had gone; darkness had come, and now 
darkness itself would leave soon, for the third 
quarter of a great saffron moon showed its edge 
in the eastward. Marseilles was like the pale 
light of a candle. And a great palpable dark- 
ness had settled like water in the hollow of the 
woods. 

“Dearest” — her voice took sudden strength 
— “will you forgive me? I don’t say that just 
as if I ’d done a small wrong. But will a big 


THE MOUTH OF HONEY 


i6i 


power come out of your heart and say: ‘It’s all 
right, Claire-Anne. I understood.’ It will be 
so much for me to know that — in the days when 
you are gone — ” 

“But, Claire-Anne, I ’m not gone — ” 

“You must go, dearest. You must go now. 
Don’t you see?’’ Her voice grew gentle. “You 
could n’t stay any more. It would n’t be like 
you, somehow. And I would n’t have you spoiled 
in my eyes . . . darling, you could never be . . . 
but you must go . . .’’ 

“And you, Claire-Anne — ’’ 

“Destiny ... a long, lean finger ♦ . . a path 

“But you never know — ’’ 

“We know, we poor women, Shane. We 
know . . . Shane, don’t you understand . . . 
what makes the . . . girl in the archway, the 
emperor’s mistress, drink, take ether ... do 
strange horrors? . . . They know . . . And 
they want to escape from seeing it . . . for an 
instant even . . . the terrible story of the Belle 
Heaulmtere ... the ‘Armorer’s Daughter’: 

**Ainsi le bon temps regretons 

Entre nous, pauvres vielles sotes. 

Assises has, a crouppetons. 

Tout en ling tas cornmes pelotes. 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


162 


A petit feu de chenevotes 
Tost allumees, tost estaintes: 

Et jadis fusmes si mignotesf . . . 

Ainsi emprent d maintes et maintes, 

‘‘Do you understand, Shane, do you under- 
stand? So we regret the good old times, poor 
old light women, gathered together like fagots, 
and hunkering over a straw fire, soon lit, soon 
out — tost allumees, tost estaintes . . . and once 
we were so dainty. To many and many ’s the 
one it happens. Pauvres vielles sotes! Poor old 
light women, Shane . . . Et jadis fusmes si mig- 
notes! . . . Dainty as I am, they were once . . . 
And do you blame them now when see it coming 
. . . the drink, the ether . . . the abominable 
things . . P 

“O my God! Claire-Anne 1” 

“Heart of hearts, Shane. I once escaped to 
light, where they escape to oblivion . . . Once 
I had you, and all my life I ’ll remember it . . . 
All my life I’ll remember: I once knew a 
man . . . And it will be a help, so much a 
help . . 

“Oh, Claire-Anne, it can’t be!’’ 

“It must be, dearest heart. It is — decreed. 
Darling, sometimes I thought — Do you remem- 
ber your showing me the poor prince’s dagger, 
and our talking about him — setting himself free 


THE MOUTH OF HONEY 


163 

— and I said I thought I could understand why 
he did not . . . I ’ve wanted to, myself.. . . 
But . . . There ’s a way you ’re brought up, 
when you ’re young . . . They put such fear of 
God in you . . . such fear of hell . . . you 
never could — throw things down and go straight 
to Him, and say: ‘I couldn’t. I just simply 
could n’t. I had n’t the strength. I could n’t 
. . . just . . .’ And they never think of Him 
saying: ‘Of course you could n’t . . . And it was 
all My fault. I was n’t looking ... I ’ve so 
much to think of ... You did right to come to 
Me . . . ’ But, no! no! One fears. They 
teach you so much fear, Shane, when you are 
young ... so that even this is better — this — 
game, where none win . . . And so — one goes 
on . . . 

She rose suddenly and clutched his shoul- 
ders in panic. Her mouth twisted in piteous 
agony . . . 

“Oh, but dearest, dearest, pauvres vielles sotes, 
poor old light women . . . Shane, assises bas, a 
crouppetons, in an archway, hoping for a drunken 
farmer with a couple of sous . . . and so cold, 
so cold, with a little fire of straw stalks . . . 
tost allumees, tost estaintesF^ . . . 

“No, Claire-Anne! no!’’ 

“A drunken farmer, or traveling pedler . . . 


I 


164 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


Et jadis fusmes si mignotes . . . and so dainty 
once !” 

“No!” His voice took the ring of decision. 
She did n’t hear him. Her voice broke into a 
torrent of sobs. 

“Take me in your arms, Shane, once more. 
And let my heart come into your heart, where 
it ’s so warm . . . and I ’ll have something to 
remember in the days when it will be ... so 
cold, so cold . . . and I ’ll be there warming old 
bones A petit feu de chenevotes . . . 
Shane, dearest, please ...” 

He took her in his arms, and her body seemed 
to be some light envelope in which a great turmoil 
of spirit beat, as a wild bird beats against a cage 
. . . He could hardly hold her body so much 
was her tortured sobbing ... So much did what 
was within wheel and beat, beat and wheel, in 
unendurable panic. Her voice murmured in his 
wet shoulder: 

*Tauvre vielle sote! O Shane, Shane . . . 
pauvre vielle sote! . . . 


§ 12 

Above him, to starboard, he could hear the 


THE MOUTH OF HONEY 


165 

churning of the tug that was to take them from 
the docks to the open sea. Overhead the pilot 
was stamping impatiently. Foward the mate was 
roaring like a bull : 

“Where is that damned apprentice? Tell him 
to lay aft and bear a hand with the warps.” 

In a minute or so he would have to go on the 
poop and give orders to let go and haul in. 
The tug was blowing, “Hurry up ... ” He 
ought to be on deck now . . . He hated to go 
up ... he hated to see the last of Mar- 
seilles ... he would never see Marseilles 
again . . . 

Was all ready? Yes, all was ready. Cargo, 
supplies, sea-chest, everything for the long voy- 
age he had decided — had to decide — on at the 
last minute. Forward across the Atlantic to 
where the sou’east trades blew, and then south- 
’ard reaching under all sail — the fleecy clouds, the 
bright constellations of the alien pofe, the strange 
fish-like birds, the flying-fish, the bonita, the 
albacore; the chill gust from the River Plate; the 
roar of the gales of the forties; the tremendous 
fight around the Horn, with a glimpse of land 
now and then as they fought for easting — the 
bleak rocks of Diego Ramirez and the Iledefon- 
sos, and perhaps the blue ridge of Cape Horn, or 
of the False Cape; then, northward to Callao 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


1 66 

. . . anywhere, everywhere . .. . new seas, 
new lands, new cities . . . but never again Mar- 
seilles . . . 

And he would never see her again. La MieU 
lease — could n’t if he wanted to . . . never again 
. . . irrevocable . . . On that pillow she had 
laid her head, her dark darling head! . . . And 
last night he had seen it for the last time, 
dark, smiling in sleep, on a snowy pillow . . . 
He remembered as he might remember a strange 
pantomime . . . His going to his coat for — 
what he had there . . . the silent tiptoe . . . 
the gentle raising of her left arm, as she smiled 
in her sleep . . . the sudden weakness at her soft 
warm beauty ... the decision ... Of course 
he had done right! . . . Of course! ... Of 
course ! . . . 

Overhead the pilot stamped on the deck in a 
flurry of impatience. The tug wailed in irrita- 
tion. He must get on deck . . . 

He threw one last glance around . . . He 
had everything he needed for himself . . . 
Nothing lacking . . . His eyes paused for a mo- 
ment on his desk. Wait! Where was the 
dagger? Prince Charles’s dagger? 

He gripped himself in fright. Was he go- 
ing — had he gone — mad? He knew where that 
was ... he knew ... he knew ... It was — 


THE MOUTH OF HONEY 


167 


“Ogh!” A flash of horror went over him 
. . . But he had done right ... of course he 
had done right . . . 

“All ’s ready, sir,” the mate called in to his 
cabin 

“Yes? ...” 

“Man, you ’re no’ ill?” the mate looked at him, 
queerly. 

“Of course I ’m not ill.” He swung on deck. 
“All right? Let go aft, then, and haul in. Tug 
a little westward : a little more westward. Hard 
a port, Mr. McKinstry. All right! Let go all, 
for’a’d . . . She ’s off . . .” 




PART FOUR 

THE WRESTLER FROM ALEPPO 



THE WRESTLER FROM ALEPPO 


§ I 

Zany came his wife’s slow grave voice, 
“O Shane, when your ship is in trouble, or 
does not go fast, do the passengers beat you?” 

“Of course not,” Campbell laughed. “What 
put that in your little head?” 

“When I went with my uncle, Arif Bey, on the 
pilgrimage to Mecca — ^Arif was a Moslem that 
year” — she bit the thread of the embroidery she 
was doing with her little sharp teeth, tkk ! — “our 
ship anchored for the night in Birkat Faraun — 
Pharaoh’s Bay. In the morning it would not 
move, so the Maghrabi pilgrims beat the captain 
terribly. And once at Al-Akabah, when the cap- 
tain lost sight of shores for one whole long day, 
the Maghrabis beat him again. They said he 
should have known better. Don’t — don’t they 
ever beat you, ya Zan?** 

“Not yet, Fenzile. They only beat bad skip- 
pers.” 

“But our Rais was a good sailor. He must 
have been a good sailor, Zan. He was very old. 

171 


172 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


He was very pious, too. He said the prayers. 
Do you ever say the prayers, Zan, when the sea 
looks as if it were about to be angry?’’ 

“What sort of prayers, Fenzile?” 

“Oh, prayers. Let me see.’’ Her dark eyes 
had the look he loved, as if she had turned around 
and were rummaging within herself, as a woman 
seeks diligently and yet slowly in a chest. “Oh, 
like the Moslem’s Hizh aUBahr. You ought to 
know that prayer, ya Zan. It will make you safe 
at sea. I wonder you, a great Rais, do not know 
that prayer.’’ 

“What is the prayer, Fenzile?’’ 

“ ‘We pray Thee for safety in our goings forth 
and our standings still . . . Subject unto us this 
sea, even as Thou didst subject the deep to Moses, 
and as Thou didst subject the fire to Abraham, 
and as Thou didst subject the iron to David, 
and as Thou didst subject the wind and the devils 
and djinns and mankind to Solomon, and as Thou 
didst subject the moon and AUBurah to Moham- 
med, on whom be Allah’s mercy and His blessing! 
And subject unto us all the seas in earth and 
heaven, in Thy visible and in Thine invisible 
worlds, the sea of this life and the sea of futurity. 
O Thou Who reignest over everything and unto 
Whom all things return.’ . . . You must know 


THE WRESTLER FROM ALEPPO 173 


that prayer, and say that prayer, ya Zan. What 
do you do when it is very stormy?” 

‘‘Oh, take in as little sail as possible and keep 
shoving ahead.” 

“I don’t understand,” she let the embroidery 
fall in her lap. “I see your ship from the quays 
and I can’t understand how you guide such a big 
ship. And how you go at night, Zan, that I 
cannot understand. It is so dark at night. 
There is a terrible lot I do not understand. I 
am very stupid.” 

“You are very dear and darling, Fenzile. You 
understand how to take care of a house and how 
to be very beautiful, and be very loving — ” 

“Do I, Zanim? That is not hard. That is 
not very much. That is not like sailing a ship 
on the sea.” 

Without, Beirut seethed with life. Thin, 
gaunt dogs barked and snarled in the narrow 
staired streets. Came the cry of the donkey- 
boys. Came the cry of the water-sellers. Came 
the shouts of the young Syrians over the gammon 
game. Loped the laden camels. Tramped the 
French soldiers. Came a new hum . . . 

Fenzile rose and went through the courtyard, 
past the little fountain with the orange-trees, 
past the staircase to the upper gallery, came to 


174 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


the barred iron gates, looked a moment, moved 
modestly back into the shadows . . . 

“O look, ya Zan/^ her grave voice became ex- 
cited. “Come quickly. See. It is Ahmet Ali, 
with his attendants and a lot of people follow- 
ing him.’* 

“And who is Ahmet Ali?” 

“Ahmet Ali! don’t you know, Zanim? The 
great wrestler, Ahmet Ali. The wrestler from 
Aleppo ...” 


§ 2 

Through the grilled door, in the opal shade 
of the walls, Shane saw the wrestler stroll down 
the street; a big bulk of a man in white robe and 
turban, olive-skinned, heavy on his feet, seeming 
more like a prosperous young merchant than a 
wrestling champion of a vilayet. Yet underneath 
the white robes Shane could sense the immense 
arms and shoulders, the powerful legs. Very 
heavily he moved, muscle-bound a good deal, 
Shane thought; a man for pushing and crushing 
and resisting, but not for fast, nervous work, 
sinew and brain coordinating like the crack of a 
whip. A Cornish wrestler would turn him inside 


THE WRESTLER FROM ALEPPO 175 


out within a minute; a Japanese would pitch him 
like a ball before he had even taken his stance. 
But once he had a grip he would be irresistible. 

“So that ’s Ahmet Ali.” 

“Yes, Zan,’’ Fenzile clapped her hands with 
delight, like a child seeing a circus procession. 
“Oh, he is a great wrestler. He beat Yussuf 
Hussein, the Cairene, and he beat a great 
Russian wrestler who came on a pilgrimage to 
Jerusalem. And he beat a French sailor. And 
he beat a Tartar. Oh, he is a great wrestler, 
Ahmet Ali.” 

The wrestler had come nearer. Behind him 
came four or five supporters, in cloth white as 
his. Behind them came a ruck of Syrian youths, 
effeminate, vicious. Came a croud of donkey- 
boys, impish, black. The wrestler walked more 
slowly as he approached to pass the iron doors. 
And Shane was startled into a sudden smile at the 
sight of his face — a girl’s face, with a girl’s eyes. 
And in his hand was a rose. A wrestler with a 
rose ! 

“Why, a man could kill him.” 

“Oh, no! Oh, no, Zan!” Fenzile said. 
“He is very strong. He conquered Yussuf Hus- 
sein, the Cairene, and Yussuf Hussein could bend 
horseshoes with his bare hands. He is very 
strong, very powerful Ahmet Ali.” 


176 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


The wrestler was walking slowly past the house 
throwing glances through the grill with his full 
girl’s eyes. A quick suspicion came into Camp- 
bell’s mind. He turned to his wife. 

“Does he come past here often?’’ 

“Yes, yes, Zan. Every day.” 

“Does he stop and look into the court like that, 
every time?” 

“Yes, Zan. Every time,” she smiled. 

“Do you know whom he ’s looking for?” 

“Yes, Zan. For me.” 

Campbell’s hand shot out suddenly and caught 
her wrist. 

“Fenzile,” his voice was cold. “You are n’t 
carrying on with, encouraging this — Ahmet All?” 

“Zan Cam’el,” her child’s eyes flashed unex- 
pectedly. “I am no cheap Cairene woman. I 
am a Druse girl. The daughter of a Druse 
Bey.” 

“I am sorry, Fenzile.” 

She looked at him steadily with her great green 
eyes, green of the sea, and as he looked at her 
sweet roundish face, her little mouth half open in 
sincerity, her calm brow, her brown arch of eye- 
brow, she seemed to him no more than a beautiful 
proud child. There was no guile in her. 

“You mustn’t be foolish, you know, Fenzile.” 

**Severim Seni. I love only you, Zan. But it 


THE WRESTLER FROM ALEPPO 177 


is so funny to see him go by, I must always smile. 
Don’t you think it funny, Zan?” 

“No, I don’t think it at all funny.” 

“Oh, but it is funny, Zan. A big strong 
wrestler like that to be foolish over a very little 
woman. And for a cheap showman of the 
market-place to be lifting his eyes to a daughter 
of the Druse emirs. It is funny.” 

“It is n’t funny. And he is n’t much of a 
wrestler anyway.” 

“Oh, but he is, Zan. He is a very great 
wrestler. They say he threw and killed a bear.” 

“O kooltooluk. Hell ! I could throw him my- 
self.” 

She said nothing, turning her head, and reach- 
ing for her embroidery. 

“Don’t you believe me, Fenzile? I tell you 
I could make mince-meat of him.” 

“Of course, Zan. Of course you could.” And 
she smiled. But this time it was n’t the delighted 
smile of a child. It was the grave patient smile 
of a wise woman. And Shane knew it. Past 
that barrier he could not break. And on her be- 
lief he could make no impress. There was no 
use arguing, talking. She would just smile and 
agree. And her ideal of strength and power 
would be the muscle-bound hulk of the Aleppo 
man, with the girl’s face and the girl’s eyes, and 


178 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


the rose in his hand. And Shane, all his life 
inured to sport, hard as iron, supple as a whip, 
with his science picked up from Swedish quarter- 
masters and Japanese gendarmes, from mates 
and crimps in all parts of the world, would always 
be in her eyes, an infant compared to the mon- 
strous Syrian! Not that it mattered a tinker’s 
curse, but — 

Oh, damn the wrestler from Aleppo! 


§ 3 

He had thought, when he left Liverpool on a 
gusty February day, of all the peace and quiet, of 
the color and life there would be on the Asian 
shore . . . Europe had somehow particularly 
sickened him on this last voyage . . . All its 
repose was sordid, all its passion was calculated. 
England and its queen mourned the sudden death 
of the prince consort, but it mourned him with a 
sort of middle-class domesticity, and no majesty. 
So a grocer’s family might have mourned, re- 
membering how well papa cut the mutton . . . 
He was so damned good at everything, Albert 
was, and he approved of art and science — within 
reason . . . There was a contest for a human 


THE WRESTLER FROM ALEPPO 179 


ideal in America, and in the ports of England 
privateers were being fitted out, to help the South, 
as the 'Greeks might, for a price . . . And Na- 
poleon, that solemn comedian, was making ready 
his expedition to Mexico, with fine words and a 
tradesman’s cunning . . . And the drums of 
Ulster roared for Garibaldi, rejoicing in the 
downfall of the harlot on seven hills, as Ulster 
pleasantly considered the papal states, while 
Victor Emmanuel, sly Latin that he was, thought 
little of liberty and much about Rome . . . Aye, 
kings ! 

And so a great nostalgia had come over Shane 
Campbell on this voyage for the Syrian port and 
the wife he had married there. He wanted sun- 
shine. He wanted color. He wanted simplicity 
of life. Killing there was in Syria, great killing 
too. But it was the sort of killing one under- 
stood and could forgive. A Druse disliked a 
Maronite Christian, so he went quietly and 
knifed him. Another Maronite resented that, 
and killed a Druse; and they were all at it, 
hell-for-leather. But it was passion and fanat- 
icism, not high-flown words and docile armies 
and the tradesmen sneaking up behind . . . 
Ave, war! 

And he was sick of the damned Mersey fog, 
and he was sick of the drunkenness of Scotland 


i8o 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


Road, and he was sick of the sleet lashing Hoylake 
links. He was sick of Pharisaical importers who 
did the heathen in the eye on Saturday and on 
Sunday in their blasted conventicles thumped their 
black-covered craws in respectable humility . . . 
In Little Asia religion was a passion, not a smug 
hypocrisy; and though the heathen was dishonest, 
yet it was not the mathematical reasoned dis- 
honesty of the Christian. It was a childish 
game, like horse-coping . . . And in the East 
they did not blow gin in your face, smelling like 
turpentine. . . . 

And he was sick of the abominable homes, 
the horsehair furniture with the anti-macassars — 
Lord ! and they called themselves clean . . . He 
wanted the spotlessness of the Syrian courtyard. 

. . . The daubs on the British walls, sentimental 
St. Bernard dogs and dray-horses with calves’ 
eyes, brought him to a laughing point when he 
thought of the subtlety of color and line in strange 
Persian rugs. . . . 

And he was sick of British women, with their 
knuckled hands, their splayed feet. Their abom- 
inable dressing, too, a bust and a brooch and a 
hooped skirt — their grocers’ conventions, prudish, 
almost obscene, avoiding of the natural in word, 
deed, or thought. . . . He wanted Fenzile, with 


THE WRESTLER FROM ALEPPO i8i 


her eyes, vert de mer^ her full childish face, her 
slim hands with the orange-tinted finger nails, her 
silken trousers, her little slippers of silver and 
blue . . . Her soft arms, her back-thrown head, 
her closed lids . . . And the fountain twinkling 
in the soft Syrian night, while afar off some 
Arab singer chanted a poem of Lyla Khanim’s: 

^^Beni ser-mest u hayran eyleyen ol yar; janitn 
dir . . . The world is a prison and my heart is 
scarred . . . My tears are like a vineyard’s 
fountain, O absent one . . 

And here was Beirut again: here the snowy 
crest of Lebanon, here the roadstead crowded 
with craft; here the mulberry groves. Here the 
sparkling sapphire sea; here the turf blazing 
with poppies; here the quiet pine road to 
Damascus; here the forests, excellent with cedars. 
Here the twisting unexpected streets. Here his 
own quiet house, with the courtyard and its foun- 
tain. Here the hum of the bazaars, here the ha- 
ha of the donkey boys, here the growling camels. 
Here the rugs on the wall; here the little orange- 
trees. Here the two negress servants, clean, effi- 
cient. Here color, and peace, and passion. 
Here Fenzile . . . 

And this damned wrestler from Aleppo must 
go and spoil it all. 


THE JVIND BLOWETH 


182 


§4 

He might have shipped with one of the great 
American clippers racing around Cape Hope 
under rolling topsails, and become in his way as 
well known as Donald Mackay was, who built and 
mastered the Sovereign of the Seas^ with her 
crew of one hundred and five, four mates and 
two boatswains. He might have had a ship like 
Phil Dumaresq’s Surprise, that had a big eagle 
for her figurehead. He might have clipped the 
record of the Flying Cloud, three hundred and 
seventy-four miles in one day, steering north- 
ward and westward around Cape Horn. He 
might have had a ship as big as the Great Re- 
public, the biggest ship that ever took the seas. 
He might have had one of the East Indiamen, 
and the state of an admiral. He might have 
had one of the new adventurers in steel and steam. 

But fame and glory never allured him, and 
destiny did not call him to be any man’s servant. 
He was content to be his own master with his 
own ship, and do whatsoever seemed to him good 
and just to do. If they needed him and his boat 
anywhere, he would be there. When they 


THE WRESTLER FROM ALEPPO 183 


needed boats to America, he was there. But if 
they did n’t need him, he was not the one to 
thrust himself. Let destiny call. 

Success, as it was called, was a thing of destiny. 
When destiny needed a man, destiny tapped him 
on the shoulder. Failure, however, was a man’s 
own fault. There was always work to do. 
And it was up to every man to find his work. If 
there was no room for him in a higher work it 
was no excuse for his not working in a lower plane. 
There would be no failures, he thought, if folk 
were only wise. If a man came a cropper in a 
big way, it was because he had rushed into a work 
before Destiny, the invisible infallible nuncio of 
God, had chosen her man. Or because he was 
dissatisfied, ambition and ability not being equal. 
Or because he was lazy. 

Always there was work to do, as there was 
work for him now. Clouds of sail and tubby 
steamboats went the crowded tracks of the 
world’s waters, not to succor and help but for 
gain of money. And Lesser Asia was neglected, 
now that the channel of commerce to the States 
was opened wide. Syria needed more than senti- 
mental travelers to the Holy Land. It needed 
machinery for its corn-fields and its mines. It 
needed prints and muslins from the Lancashire 
looms. It needed rice and sugar. And it had 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


184 

more to give than a religious education. Fine 
soap and fruit and wine and oil and sesame it 
gave, golden tobacco, and beautiful craftmanship 
in silver and gold, fine rugs from Persia. Brass 
and copper and ornamental woodcarving from 
Damascus, mother of cities; walnuts, wheat, 
barley, and apricots from its gardens and fields. 
Wool and cotton, gums and saffron from Aleppo, 
and fine silk embroidery. 

Others might race past Java Head to China for 
tea and opium. Others might make easting around 
the Horn to the gold-fields of California. Others 
might sail up the Hooghly to Calicut, trafficking 
with mysterious Indian men. Others might 
cross to the hustle and welter of New York, 
young giant of cities, but Campbell was content 
to sail to Asia Minor. He brought them what 
they needed and they sent color and rime to pro- 
saic Britain, hashish to the apothecaries, and 
pistachios from Aleppo, cambric from Nablus 
and linen from Bagdad, and occasionally for an 
antiquary a Damascene sword that rang like a 
silver bell. 

For others the glory and fame to which 
destiny had called them. For others the 
money that they grubbed with blunted fingers 
from the dross-heaps of commerce. But for 


THE WRESTLER FROM ALEPPO 185 


Campbell what work he could do, well done — 
and Lesser Asia . . . 


§ 5 

Of all the seas he had sailed it seemed to 
Shane that Mediterranean had more color, more 
life, more romance than any. Not the battles 
round the Horn, not the swinging runs to China, 
not the starry southern seas had for him the 
sense of adventure that Mediterranean had. 
Mediterranean was not a sea. It was a home 
haven, with traditions of the human house. 
Here Sennacherib sailed in the great galleys the 
brown Sidonian shipwrights had made for him. 
Here had been the Phenicians with their brailed 
squaresail. Here had been the men of Rhodes, 
sailors and fighters both. Here the Greek 
penteconters with their sails and rigging of 
purple and black. Here the Cypriotes had 
sailed under the lee of the islands Byron loved 
and where Sappho sang her songs like wine and 
honey, sharp wine and golden honey. Here had 
the Roman galleys splashed and here the great 
Venetian boats set proud sail against the Geno- 
ese. Here had the Lion-heart sailed gallantly 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


1 86 

to Palestine. Here had Icarus fallen in the blue 
sea. Here had Paul been shipwrecked, sailing on 
a ship of Andramyttium bound to the coast of 
Asia, crossing the sea which is off Cilicia and 
Pamphylia, and trans-shipping at Myra. How 
modern it all sounded but for the strange antique 
names. 

“And when we had sailed slowly many days’’ — 
only a seaman could feel the pathos of that 
— “and scarce were come over against Cnidus, 
the wind not suffering us, we sailed under Crete, 
over against Salmone; 

“And, hardly passing it, came unto a place 
which is called The Fair Havens — ” 

Was Paul a sailor, too, Campbell often 
wondered? The bearded Hebrew, like a fire- 
brand, possibly epileptic, not quite sane, had he 
at one time been brought up to the sea? “Sirs,” 
he had said, “I perceive that this voyage will be 
with hurt and much damage, not only of the lad- 
ing and ship, but also of our lives.” There 
spoke a man who knew the sea — not a timid 
passenger. But the master of the ship thought 
otherwise and yet Paul was right. And then 
came “a tempestuous wind, called Euroclydon.” 
And that was the Levanter of to-day, Euraquilo, 
they call it — hell let loose. Then came furious 
seas, and the terrors of a lee shore; the frapping 


THE WRESTLER FROM ALEPPO 187 


of the ship and the casting overboard of tackle, 
the jettisoning of freight — 

“And when neither sun nor stars in many days 
appeared, and no small tempest lay on us, all 
hope that we should be saved was then taken 
away.” Somehow the absolute fidelity of the sea- 
life of the story went to Campbell’s heart, and 
the figure of Paul the mariner was clearer than 
the figure of Paul the Apostle. 

“Howbeit, we must be cast upon a certain 
island. 

“But when the fourteenth night was come, as 
we were driven up and down in Adria, about 
midnight the shipmen deemed that they drew 
near to some country — ” 

The intuition of seamanship. The flash. How 
modern I Oh, Paul lived in that sea. His 
ghost and memory were forever there, as were 
the ghosts of the Lion-heart; and of Sappho, 
singer of songs; and of the stout Phenician sail- 
ing men; and of the doges of Venice, lovers and 
husbands of the sea. On the tideless Mediter- 
ranean beauty still abided, as nowhere else; would 
abide, when nowhere else — 

Would it, though? Would it abide anywhere? 
A pang came into Campbell’s heart. Off Finis- 
terre he had been passed by RoberC Steel of 
Greenock’s Falcon, every sail drawing, skysails 


i88 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


and moonrakers set, a pillar of white cloud she 
seemed, like some majestic womanhood. And 
while boats like the Fiery Cross and the Falcon 
tore along like greyhounds, there v/ere building 
tubby iron boats to go by steam. The train was 
beating the post-chaise with its satiny horses, the 
train that went by coal one dug from the ground. 
And even now de Lesseps and his men were 
digging night and day that the steamboat might 
push the proud clipper from the seas. Queer! 
Would there come a day when no topgallants 
drew? And the square-rigged ships would be 
like old crones gathering fagots on an October 
day. And what would become of the men who 
built and mastered great racing shipsi? And 
would the sea itself permit vile iron and smudgy 
coal to speck its immaculate bosom? Must the 
sea, too, be tamed like a dancing bear for the 
men who are buying and selling? It seemed 
impossible. 

But the shrewd men who trafficked said it must 
be so. They were spending their money on de 
Lesseps’s fabulous scheme. And the shrewd men 
never spent money without a return. They would 
conquer. 

Poor sea of the Vikings! Poor sea of the 
Lion-heart and of the Sappho of the songs! 
Poor sea of Admiral Columbus! Poor sea to 


THE WRESTLER FROM ALEPPO 189 


whom Paul made obeisance ! Sea of Drake and 
sea of Nelson, and sea of Philip of Spain. Poor 
sea whom the great doges of Venice wed with 
a ring of gold! Christ! If they could only 
bottle you, they would sell you like Holland gin ! 


§ 6 

He had figured his work. He had figured 
his field. It seemed to him that this being done 
life should flow on evenly as a stream. But there 
were gaps of unhappiness that all the subtle sail- 
ing of a ship, all the commerce of the East, all the 
fighting of the gales could not fill. Within him 
somewhere was a space, in his heart, in his head, 
somewhere, a ring, a pit of emotion — how, where, 
why he could not express. It just existed. And 
this was filled at times with concentration on his 
work, at times with plans of the future and 
material memories of the past or thoughts of 
ancient shipmates, of his Uncle Robin. It was 
like a house, that space was, with a strange divi- 
sion of time, that corresponded not with time of 
day, but with recurrent actions, memories, moods. 
There would be the bustle of his work, and that 
seemed to be morning. There would be the plan- 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


I go 

ning of future days, and that seemed like an after- 
noon, of sunshine; and there would be memories, 
as of old shipmates, as of Uncle Robin — ^God 
rest his dear soul; as of Alan Bonn with his 
hearty cursing, his hearty laugh. And that was 
like an evening with golden candle-light and red 
fire burning. And then would come the quietness 
of night, all the bustle, all the plans, all the 
memories gone. The fire out, the rooms empty. 
And in the strange place somewhere within would 
come a strange lucidity, blue and cold and abso- 
lute as the stars, and into that place would walk, as 
players stalk upon the stage, each of three ghosts. 

The first was his mother, who was dead, an 
apparition of chilling terror. From afar she 
beheld him with eyes that were queerly inimical. 
She had done nothing to him, nor he anything to 
her. She had done nothing for him, nor he for 
her. Between them was nothing. When she 
had died he had felt nothing, and that was the 
tragedy. No tears, no relief, nothing. She had 
carried him in her womb, born him, suckled him; 
and he had always felt he had been unwelcome. 
There had been no hospitality in her body; just 
constraint. She had had no welcome for the little 
guest of God; her heart had been hard to him 
and he at her breasts. Nothing common to them 
in life, and now joined through the horrible sig- 


THE WRESTLER FROM ALEPPO 191 


nificant gulf of death. She could be with him 
always now, being dead. But where a man’s 
mother should come to him smilingly, with soft 
hands, with wisdom and comfort passing that of 
life, she came with terrible empty eyes. He 
could see her gaunt profile, her black brows. She 
was like an engraving he had once seen of the 
witch Saul had used at En-dor, to call up Samuel, 
who was dead. She had the same awful majesty, 
the same utter loneliness. 

“You gave me nothing in life. In death give 
me peace,” he would cry. But she stayed until 
it suited her to go, as she would have done in 
life. Her haunted, haunting eyes . . .! 

And there would come another ghost, the 
ghost of the girl he had married and he a boy — 
fourteen years ago. It was strange how he could 
remember her — her red hair, her sullen mouth, 
her suspicious eyes. Her shoulders drooped a 
little; there was no grace to her stance. She 
complained against something, but she did not 
accuse him. He had married her, and she had 
married him, and she had died. That was all 
there was to it. And though she had sorrowed 
his younger days, yet he felt very kindly to her. 
There she was, with her sullen mouth, her droop- 
ing shoulders, complaining. “Life is so short, 
and there was so little to it, and others have so 


192 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


much,” she seemed to say. “I had a right to 
have my man and a place in the country, the like 
of other girls, but all I got was you. And death 
at the end of a short year. Was n’t it hard, och, 
was n’t it so !” And he had to comfort her. “It 
was nobody’s fault, Moyra. It just happened. 
We were awfully young.” But her lips were still 
sullen, her eyes suspicious as she went away. 
“A short life and a bitter one. A hard thing 
surely I” When she left him there was a sigh of 
relief. Poor girl I 

And the third ghost was hardly a presence, but 
an absence, or a presence so intangible that it was 
worse than an absence. Claire-Anne, who was 
dead, whom he had — made dead, whom he had 
taken it upon himself to set free. For a year 
after he had left Marseilles she had seemed to 
be always with him, closer in spirit, now she was 
dead, than she had ever been in flesh and spirit 
when alive. A part of him she seemed always 
to be. Always there, in the quiet cabin, on the 
heeling decks, on the solid shore. And the long 
thoughts of him seemed to be conversation with 
her, on strange beautiful things, on strange terri- 
ble things, on the common commodity of life . .. . 
And then one day she left him . . . 

He was coming into Southampton Water and 
waiting for the pilot’s cutter from the Solent, 


THE WRESTLER FROM ALEPPO 193 


one bright July morning. And all the Solent was 
dotted with sails, the snowy sails of great yachts 
and the cinnamon sails of small ones. Little 
fishing-craft prowled near the shore. And afar 
off, in fancy, he could see the troops of swans, 
and the stalking herons. The pilot’s cutter 
plowed toward him, her deep forefoot dividing 
the water like a knife. Immense, vibrant beauty. 
And he felt, as always, that Claire-Anne was by 
him, her dark understanding presence, her clear 
Greek face, her little smile. 

“In a minute now we will come into the wind 
and lower a boat, Claire-Anne.” And a shock 
of surprise came over him. She was not there. 
It was as though he had been talking with his 
back turned to some one, and turning around 
found they were n’t there. For an instant he felt 
as if he had lost somebody overboard. And then 
it came to him that water, earth, material hazards 
were nothing to her any more. She had gone 
somewhere for a moment. And he turned to 
greet the pilot as he swung aboard. 

“She will come back,” he thought . . . But 
she never came back. Once or twice or maybe 
three times, a month, six months, and ten months 
later, he felt her warm lover-like presence near 
him. “Claire-Anne I Is it you, Claire-Anne?” 
And she was gone again. Something that had 


194 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


hovered, fluttered, kissed, and flown away. 
Never again! 

She had become to him in death much more 
real than she had ever been in life. In life she 
had been dynamic, a warm, multicolored, per- 
fumed cloud. In death she was static. All the 
tumult of material things gone, he had a vision 
of her clear as a line drawing. And he had come 
to depend on her so much. In difficulty of 
thought he would say: “Is this right, Claire- 
Anne?’’ And her answer would come: “Yes, 
Shane I” Or possibly when some matter of trade 
or conduct seemed dubious, not quite — whatever 
it was, her voice would come clear as a bell. 
“You mustn’t, Shane. It isn’t right. It isn’t 
like you to be small.” It might have been con- 
science, but it sounded like Claire-Anne. And 
oftentimes in problems, she v^ould say: “I don’t 
know, Shane. I don’t quite know.” And he 
would say, “We must do our best, Claire-Anne.” 

Well, she was gone. And he thought to him- 
self: What do we know of the destiny of the 
dead? They, too, must have work, missions to 
perform. The God he believed in — the wise, firm, 
and kindly God — might have said : “Claire-Anne, 
he ’ll be all right now. At any rate he ’ll have 
to work out the rest for himself. Leave that. 
I want you to — ” And she had gone. 


THE WRESTLER FROM ALEPPO 195 


That was one majestic explanation, but at times 
it seemed to him that no matter what happened 
in the world, or superworld, yet she must be in 
touch with him. “Set me, as a seal upon thy 
heart, as a seal upon thine arm,” cried the prince’s 
daughter, “for love is strong as death.” If she 
loved him she must love him still. 

It suddenly occurred to him that the fault was 
not occult, but a matter of spiritual deteriora- 
tion in himself. To be in harmony with the 
lonely dead there must be no dross about the mind. 
The preoccupations of routine, the occasional dis- 
likes of some stupid ship’s officer, or boatswain, 
the troubles about cargo — this, that, the other 
pettinesses might cloud his eye as a mist clouds 
a lens. There came to him the memory of a 
translation from some Chinese poet he had heard 
somewhere, in some connection: 

Hbw am I fallen from myself ! For a long time now 

I have not seen the prince of Chang in my dreams. 

He decided he would clear and make ready the 
quiet sweet place in his heart, the room of ghosts, 
so that she might come and dwell there. But 
induce the spiritual mood of the quiet October 
evening much as he could, yet she never came 
again. 

From his mind now there faded the memory 


196 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


of her face, the memory of her hands, the memory 
of her voice even. With every week, with every 
month, with the year, she was gone. Like a lost 
thought, or a lost bar of music, she was gone. 
She had been there, but she was gone. The loss 
was a terrible one. To lose one who was alive 
was much. But to lose one who was dead was 
unbelievable, horrible ... to lose the sun . . . 
forever . . . 

He decided he could go back to the Prado of 
Marseilles, where first he had met her, where 
she would of all places have kept a tryst with 
him. There was no risk. The folk of the sea 
come and go so easily, so invisibly, and French 
law bothers itself little about the killing of a 
woman of evil repute . . . One of the risks of 
the trade, they would say. Even had there 
been a risk he would have gone. He went. 

It was a dark night, a night of wind with the 
waves lashing the shore. A night of all nights 
to keep a tryst with a dead woman. Immense 
privacy of darkness and howling winds and lash- 
ing waves. With awe he went there, as a 
shaken Catholic might enter a cathedral, dubious 
of the mystery of the eucharist, expecting some 
silent word, some invisible sign from the taber- 
nacle . . . He went with bowed head . . . 

She never came. 


THE WRESTLER FROM ALEPPO 197 


He concentrated until all faded away, even the 
night, the wind, the insistent waters. He might 
have been standing on a solitary rock in an infinite 
dark sea, to which there was no shore. Asking, 
pleading, willing for her . . . But she never 
came . . . 

And it suddenly became inevitable to him that 
she would not come; and slowly, as a man comes 
slowly out of a drug into consciousness, he came 
back into the world of lights and laughter and 
sodden things. And turning on his heel with- 
out a look, he went away . . . 

He never called to her again . . . He thought 
over her often enough, and she had never been 
real, he decided. His mother and his wife had 
been real. They were their own dimensions. 
But she was something he had made in his head, 
as an author may create a character. She was 
a hallucination. And she had never been with 
him after death: that had been a mirage in the 
hinterland of the mind. 

And he asked: Who was she, anyway? She 
was a woman who said she loved him, might even 
have believed it. Women under stress believe 
so many things. A little anger, a little passion, 
a little melancholy, and things resolve themselves 
into so many differences of color and line. And 
what standard of truth is there? Suppose he 


198 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


were to tell any man of the world of the occur- 
rence, and to ask who she was, what she was, and 
what he had been to her. They would have said 
it was simple. She was a harlot of Marseilles, 
and he was her amant de coeur. But the beauty 
of it I he would have objected. All the beauty 
was in yourself. Or as they would have put it: 
All imagination! 

What a snare it all was, and what was truth? 
How much better off a man was if he had never 
anything to do with them, and yet . . . 

A world of men, there would be something lack- 
ing! Friends he had in plenty, men would help 
him, as a ship stands by another ship at sea. 
Friends to talk to, of ships and sports, of ports 
and politics; but when one left them, one was left 
by one’s self. And all the subtleties of mind 
came again like a cloud of wasps. To each man 
his own problem of living. To each man to de- 
cide his own escape from himself. 

“And the Lord God said: It is not good 
that the man should be alone — ” the Hebrew 
chronicler had imagined. No, it was not good. 
It was terrible. After the day’s work was done, 
after the pleasant evenings of friends, then came 
the terror of the shadows. LFnreal they might 
be, but they hurt more than real things did. 
Unless one sank into the undignified oblivion of 


THE WRESTLER FROM ALEPPO 199 


drink, there was no escape. Shadows came. 
Acuter than the tick of a watch, they were there, 
the cold mother with the haunting eyes, the dead 
wife with the sullen mouth, visible as stars. And 
empty as air was the space Claire-Anne should 
have occupied, with her clear-cut beautiful fea- 
tures, her understanding eyes. Three ghosts, 
and the ghost that was missing was the most terri- 
ble ghost of all . . . He could not stand them 
any more . . . He must not be alone . . . 


§ 7 

He could not marry a Christian of the East, 
they were such an unspeakably treacherous race. 
He could not marry a Jewess, for about each one 
of the nation there seemed to be an awesome des- 
tiny, a terrible doom or an ultimate majesty 
blinding human eyes; a wall, so high that it 
was terrible . . . He could not marry a Mos- 
lem woman, for that would mean acceptance of 
Islam. And though Islam was very fine, very 
clean, and Campbell believed in resignation, and 
acknowledged there was no god but God, as the 
crypticism was, yet the Scots-Irish honesty of 
him would not accept Mohammed as the prophet 


200 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


of God. It would be like putting Bonaparte 
above the Lord Buddha. A faith is a very 
solemn thing and not to be approached lightly. 
To accept a faith publicly, the tongue in the 
cheek, was the sin of insincerity and rank dis- 
honesty, having committed which no man should 
hold up his head. And moreover Moslem 
women were queer things. For centuries they 
had been held to be a little more beautful than 
a flower, a little less valuable, less personal than 
a fine horse. Being told that for centuries, they 
had come to believe it, and believing one’s self 
to be particular leads one to become it. Moslem 
women, no I 

He had become familiar with the Druses 
around Beirut. There was something in the hard 
independent tribesmen that reminded him of the 
Ulster Scot. Aloof, unafraid, inimical, indc en- 
dent, with a strain of mysticism in them, th v 
were somehow like the glensmen of Antrim. 
Fairly friendly with the Moslems, contemptuous 
of the Latin Christians, impatient of dogma, 
they might have been the Orangemen of Syria. 
Their emirs had a great dignity and a great 
simplicity, like an old-time Highland chief. They 
acknowledged God, but after that their faith ran 
into esoteric subtleties of nature-worship, which 
they kept to the initiates among themselves . . . 


THE WRESTLER FROM ALEPPO 201 


And the common run of them had strange 
legends, as that in a mountain bowl of China 
lived tribe on tribe of Druses, and that one day 
these of Syria and of China would be reunited 
and conquer the world . . . They were very 
dignified men, and muscular . . . Their women 
had the light feet of gazelles . . . One only saw 
their sweet low foreheads, their cinnamon hands 
. . . They claimed they were Christians some- 
times, and other times they said they were Mos- 
lems, but the truth no stranger knew ... A secret 
sect, like the ancient Assassins, who had the Old 
Man of the Mountain for their king . . . With 
them dwelt beauty and terror and the glamour of 
hidden things . . . 

To Shane they were very kindly. They rec- 
ognized him for a mountain man born, and for 
an honest man. They could not understand him, 
as a Christian, seeing he took no part in Greek 
or Latin politics. They decided he must have 
some faith of his own . . . He did them some 
kindness of errands, and they were very hospitable 
to him . . . 

In ’61, after the massacres, when the tribes- 
men were preparing to retreat to the mountain 
of the Druses, he returned to find Syria occupied 
by the troops of Napoleon III and to hear that 
his friend Hamadj Beg of Deir el Kour was 


202 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


dead in the war . . . He went to condole with 
the family . . . Arif Bey, Hamadj’s brother, was 
preparing to retreat toward Damascus . . . 

“Arif Bey,” Campbell suddenly said, “also this, 
I seek a wife.” 

“Yes.” The grizzled Druse scratched his 
head, and looked at him keenly. 

“I am making Lebanon my home; therefore I 
don’t want a wife of my country. There is no 
people sib to me here but the Druse people . . . 
Would a Druse woman marry me?” 

“I — I see nothing against it.” 

“Do you know a Druse woman who would have 
me?” 

“Well, let me see,” Arif said. “There is 
Hamadj’s daughter, Fenzile.” 

“Is she young, Arif Bey?” 

“Not so young, nineteen, but she is a mountain 
woman and lasts.” 

“Is she good-looking?” 

“Yes, she is very good-looking.” 

“Is she kindly?” 

“Yes, yes, I think so.” 

“Is she wild?” 

“No, She is very docile.” 

“You trust me ? lot, Arif Bey.” 

“Yes, we trust you much.” 


THE WRESTLER FROM ALEPPO 203 


“And I trust you, Arif Bey . . . Will Fenzile 
marry me?” 

“Yes,” Arif Bey decided, “Fenzile will marry 
you.” 


§ 8 

It seemed to him, at thirty-five, that only now 
had he discovered the secret of living. Not until 
now had his choice and destiny come together 
to make this perfect equation of life. The work 
he loved of the bark Queen Maeve, with her 
beautiful sails like a racing yacht’s, her white 
decks, her shining brass. The carrying of neces- 
sities from Britain to Syria, the land he loved, 
next to Ulster, his mother. And the carrying 
from Syria into harsh plain Britain of cargoes of 
beauty like those of Sheba’s queen, on camels 
that bare spices, and very much gold and precious 
stones. And the great ancient city where he 
lived; not even Damascus, the pride of the world, 
exceeded it for beauty. Forward of massed Leb- 
anon, white with snow it lay, a welter of red roots 
and green foliage — the blue water, the garlanded 
acacias, the roses, the sally branches. Beauty! 


204 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


Beauty! The Arab shepherds in abbas of dark 
magenta, the black Greek priests, the green of a 
pilgrim’s turban, the veiled women smoking 
narghiles and daintly sipping sherbet, pink and 
yellow and white. The cry of the donkey-boy, 
and the cry of the cameleer, and the cry of the 
muezzin from the mosque. The quaint saluta- 
tions as he passed along the staired streets: 
Naharkum Sayeed! — May^your day be blessed. 
Naharaka abyad ! — May your day be white. 
Allah yahtikum el afiyeh ! — God give health to 
you. They were chanted like a refrain of a 
song. 

Beauty! Riot and slashing of color. Yet 
there was line here and massive proportion. The 
sparkling, magenta city had been the theater of 
great marching hosts. The Phenicians had 
built it: ‘‘the root of life, the nurse of cities, the 
primitive queen of the world,” they had named 
her. And gone the Phenicians, and came the 
islim subtle Egyptians. And the massive burly 
Assyrians came next: and now the memory of 
them was forgotten, also their love and their 
hatred and their envy was now perished. And 
then came the tramp of the Roman legions, 
Agrippa’s men, and held the city for centuries. 
Justinian had one of his law schools there, until 
the earth quaked and the scholars dispersed. 


THE WRESTLER FROM ALEPPO 205 


And then the Saracens held it until Baldwin, 
brother of Godfrey de Bouillon, clashed into it 
with mailed crusaders; and Baldwin, overcome 
with the beauty of the land, took him a paynim 
queen. And then came the occult reign of the 
Druse. And then the Turk. 

And St. George had killed the Dragon there, 
after the old monk’s tale. 

Shane Campbell was never weary of looking 
at the inscriptions on the great cliffs at the River 
of the Dog — the strange beauty of that name ! 
It was like the place-names of native Ulster — 
Athho, the Ford of Cows, Sraidcuacha, the 
Cuckoo’s Lane — one name sounded to the other 
like tuning-forks. And the sweet strange har- 
mony of it filled his heart, so that he could under- 
stand the irresistible charm of Lebanon — the high 
clear note like a bird’s song. Here was the sun 
and the dreams of mighty things, and the palpable 
proximity of God. Here was beauty native, to 
be picked like a nugget, not to be mined for in 
bitter hours of torment and distress. 

High, clear, sustained, the note held. Arose 
the moon and the great stars like spangles. The 
slender acacias murmured. The pines hush- 
hushed. The brouhaha of the cafes was like a 
considered counterpoint. Everywhere was har- 
mony; beauty. And there would be no de- 


2o6 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


pression. It would last. There would be no 
ghosts. They were exorcised. ;For now there 
was Fenzile. How understandable everything 
was ! It must have been under a moon like this, 
under these Syrian stars, to the hush-hush-hush 
of the pine and the rustle of willow branches, that 
Solomon the king sang his love-song. And it 
must have been to one whose body was white as 
Fenzile’s, to eyes as emerald, to velvety lips, to 
slim hands with orange-tinted finger nails that 
he sang. Surely the Shulamite was not fairer 
than the Fenzile, daughter of Hamadj, a Druse 
emir I 

How beautiful are thy feet with shoes, O princess 
daughter! 

The joints of thy thighs are like jewels, 

The work of the hands of a cunning workman. 

Thy navel is like a round goblet. 

Which wanteth not liquor: 

Thy belly is like an heap of wheat set about with lilies. 
Thy two breasts are like two young roes that are twins. 
Thy neck is like a tower of ivory: 

Thine eyes like the fishpools in Heshbon, 

By the gate of Bath-rabbim: 

Thy nose is as the tower of Lebanon which looketh 
toward Damascus. 

Thine head upon thee is like Carmel, 

And the hair of thine head like purple; 

The king is held in the galleries. 


THE WRESTLER FROM ALEPPO 207 


How fair and pleasant art thou, 

0 love, for delights! 

This thy stature is like to a palm tree. 

And thy breasts to clusters of grapes. 

1 said, I will go up to the palm tree. 

I will take hold of the boughs thereof: 

Now also thy breasts shall be as clusters of the vine. 
And the smell of thy nose like apples; 

And the roof of thy mouth like the best wine for my 
beloved. 

That goeth down sweetly. 

Causing the lips of those that are asleep to speak. . . . 


§ 9 

Where before he had made his mistake with 
women was allowing them to become spiritually 
important. His mother had been important; he 
had suffered from the sense of her lack of heart 
to him. His wife had been important; they had 
n’t understood life together, he made no attempt 
to . . . They were so young . . . And Claire- 
Anne had become spiritually important to him. 
So that when she was gone, it was hell. 

If he had treated his mother casually, depend- 
ing on his uncles, it would have been all right. 


208 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


If he had discerned — and he had discerned, 
though he knew not how to act — that his wife 
and he would forever be inharmonious, it would 
not have been a scar on his youth. If he had gone 
for instance to Alan Donn and said, “Uncle Alan, 
I ’m afeared there ’s a mistake been made. And 
what are we going to do about this woman o’ 
Louth?” And Alan would have said: “I ken’t 
well you were a damned young fool. Ah, well, 
gang off aboard your boatie, and I ’ll see to her.” 
Alan would have ditched her and her mother 
mercilessly, and there would have been no scar 
on his youth ... 

And Claire-Anne, had he only taken her as he 
should have taken her, as a light love, easily 
gotten, to be taken easily, instead of tragedizing 
until his fingers were scarlet. . . . God! . . . 
Yes, where before he had made his mistakes with 
women was allowing them to become spiritually 
important. 

Well, he wouldn’t do that with Fenzile. He 
knew better now. Keep the heart free. Let 
there be beauty and graciousness and kindliness, 
but keep the heart free, and ask for no heart. 
All tragedies were internal, all the outward deeds 
being only as sounds. Keep the heart free. 

There were so many aspects to her. She was 
like a bird about the house, gaily colored, of 


THE WRESTLER FROM ALEPPO 209 


bright song. He loved to see her move here and 
there, with movements as of music. And she 
was like a child at times, as she solemnly made 
sherbets — very like a child she was, intense, 
simple. And she was like a young relative; there 
was emptiness in the house as she went, and when 
she came back it was like a bird singing. 

And she was so beautiful about the place, with 
her eyes green of the sea, her dusky velvet lips, 
her slim cinnamon hands, with the dramatic 
orange tinting on the nails. Always was some 
new beauty in her, a tilt of the head, a sudden 
gracious pose. She was like some piece of warm 
statuary. From any angle came beauty, shining 
as the sun. 

And in the dusk when his arms were about 
her, she was no longer child, relative, or statue. 
She was woman, vibrant woman. Tensed muscles 
and a little stifled moan. And an emotional sob, 
maybe, or a tear glistening on her cheek. Re- 
laxation, and a strange, easy dignity. With her 
arms about her white knees, her little head up- 
raised, thoughts seemed to be going and coming 
from her like bees in and out of their straw skep. 
And often he was tempted to ask her what she 
was thinking of. But he stopped himself in time. 
Of course she was thinking of nothing at all, bar- 
ring possibly a new sherbet to be made, or 


210 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


whether, if they sold Fatima, the Abyssinian 
cook, who was becoming garrulous, would Fatima 
have a good home. Trifles! What was the 
use of asking her? And here was another pos- 
sibility. She might — anything was possible — 
be in some deep subtle thought, into which, if he 
asked, he might get enmeshed, or be trapped 
emotionally. Better not ask. He wanted to 
know nothing of her heart, and to keep his. 

He loved her in a happy guarded way. And 
she loved him. When he came back after a 
voyage she looked at him with an amazed joy. 
“O Zan! Zan, dear! Is it you? Is it really 
you?” She would rush and hold him. What 
amazing strength her little arms had! And she 
would stand back and look at him again. “O 
Zan! Zan!” And she would bury her perfumed 
head in his shoulder to hide the glad tears. “O 
Zan!” 

“Do you know why I love you so much, Zan 
dear?” she once said. 

“Why, Fenzile?” 

“Because you are so big, and yet you are so 
gentle. And you would n’t do a little thing, my 
Zan.” 

“Don’t be foolish, Fenzile!” 

“I am not foolish.” 

Only once she asked him how he loved her. 


THE WRESTLER FROM ALEPPO 21 1 


“I wonder — how much do you love me, my 
Zan?” 

“Oh, lots, Fenzile. A terrible lot.” And he 
smiled. 

“As much as you do your ship?” 

“Yes, as much as I do my ship.” 

“That is a lot, Zan . . . Zan, would you miss 
me, if I should die?” 

“I should miss you terribly.” 

“If you died, I should die, too.” Her voice 
quavered. 

“Don’t be silly. Of course you would n’t.” 

“Don’t you think I would?” And she laughed 
with him one of her rare, rare laughs. And that 
was the way it all should end, in pretty laughter. 
Let there be none of this horrible emotionalism, 
this undignified welter of thought and feeling. 
Kindness of eyes, and pleasantness of body, but 
keep the heart away. Let them be — how? 
There was n’t a word in English, or in Gaidhlig 
to express it; in French there was — des amis, 
not des amants. Let them be that. Let there 
be no involution of thought and mind about it. 
Let there be this time no mistake . . . Where 
before he had made his mistake with women was 
allowing them to become spiritually impor- 
tant . . . 


212 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


S lo 

Into this idyl of Beirut came now the wrestler 
from Aleppo, Ahmet Ali, and the occurrence ir- 
ritated Campbell to a degree which he had not 
conceived possible. There he passed the door 
with his dreamy Syrian face, his red rose, his 
white burnoose, his straggling followers. And 
Fenzile smiled her quiet aloof smile. 

There might be amusement in it, a queer 
Eastern comedy of the mountebank who raised 
his eyes to a Druse princess, and wife of a Frank 
ship’s master. It might be amusing to Fenzile 
to see this conqueror of men conquered by her 
presence, but it wasn’t dignified. By God! it 
was n’t dignified. 

But it was n’t dignified to talk about it. To 
show Fenzile that it mattered a tinker’s curse 
to him. So he said nothing, and the wrestler 
went by every day. It was becoming intolerable. 
It seemed to amuse Fenzile, but it did n’t amuse 
him. 

And suddenly a chill smote him. What did 
he know of these people of the East anyhow? 
In six years one could learn their language per- 


THE WRESTLER FROM ALEPPO 213 


fectly, know their customs, know themselves, but 
know only as much as they wanted, to be known. 
The outer person, which is hallucination, one 
might know, but what of the inner, which is 
reality? A strange country, where the mer- 
chants spoke like princes and the princes like 
cameleers, and the sakyeh, the water-carrier, 
might quote some fancy of Hafiz, as the water 
gurgled from the skin. The obedience, the 
resignation in the women’s eyes might cover in- 
trigue, and what was behind the eyes of the men, 
soft as women’s? 

‘‘Fenzile, you say you love me, because I am 
kind. Don’t you love me because I am strong?” 

“Anyway, anyhow, dear Zan.” 

“I am strong, you know. As strong as your 
friend, Ahmet Ali.” 

“Of course, dear Zan.” But somehow her tone 
did not carry conviction. If she understood there 
was nothing this wrestler had he did not have 
better, it would have been all right. All at- 
tributes in the world would have been for her in 
him. But she thought the wrestler was strong. 
Damn women ! Could n’t they understand the 
difference between the muscles of a hunting 
leopard and the bulk of a sea-cow? It was silly, 
but it irritated him. 

And then a thought came to him that he felt 


214 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


degraded him, but of which he could not rid him- 
self, try as he would. What did he know of 
Fenzile, barring that she was young and strong 
and beautiful? Nothing. Of what was she 
thinking in those dreamy eyes, green of the sea? 
And women always admired strength in a man. 
And he was away most of the time, half anyway. 
And the breath of the East was intrigue. 

“Oh, don’t be rotten,” he told himself. But 
the occasional hot and searing pain remained, 
and the little black cloud was in his mind. When 
they were close in the soft gloom, shoulder to 
shoulder, her eyes closed, her slim cinnamon 
hands clenched, pain stabbed him like a knife. 
And in the gay mornings, when she was arranging 
her flowers in vases of Persian blue, it made him 
silent as the grave. And in the evening when 
she was doing her subtle Syrian broideries, it 
aroused in him queer gusts of controlled fury . . . 
Could it be possible? A mountebank . . . 
And the “Thousand and One Nights” began with 
Shah Zamon* s queen and her love for the 
blackamoor slave . . . 

If the wrestler would only go away, become 
tired of parading, and Fenzile would tire of 
smiling . . . And later on Campbell would 
laugh . . . 


THE WRESTLER FROM ALEPPO 215 


But the wrestler stayed, and many times Camp- 
bell met him in the streets, and each time was ex- 
aggerated, insulting courtesy from the Aleppo 
man, as he drew aside to let the Frank pass. 
There was hostility and contempt in his veiled 
eyes . . . There nonchalance in his smelling of 
the rose . . . Campbell passed by frigidly, as 
if the man were n’t there, and all the time his 
blood was boiling . . . But what was one to do? 
One could not make a scene before the riff-raff 
of Syria. And besides, there was too much of a 
chance of a knife in the back . . . Franks were 
cheap these days, and it would be blamed on the 
war of the Druses . . . 

Argue with himself as much as he could, it was 
intolerable. It was silly, but it was intolerable 
. . . To think of another caressing that per- 
fumed hair, of another kissing the palm of that 
slim hand, of another seeing those sleek, sweet 
shoulders . . . 

Was he jealous . . . ? No, irritated, just, 
he told himself. Was he in love with her him- 
self? Of course not. She wasn’t close enough 
to him for that . . . Then why . . . ? 

Oh, damn it I He did n’t know why, but it was 
just intolerable . . . 


2i6 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


§ II 

The bark was in the open roadstead, cargo all 
ready, Levantine pilot on board. A reaching 
breeze from the north and all favorable. And 
when he would get home to Liverpool, he had a 
design to spend a few weeks in Ulster . . . The 
roads would be glistening with frost there, and 
the pleasant Ulster moon at the full . . . The 
turf would be nearly black, and bare as a board, 
and there would be coursing of hares . . . 
November mists, and the trees red and brown 
. . . Eh, hard Ulster, pleasant Ulster! 

He should have been happy, as he made his 
way down the Beirut streets to go aboard, leaving 
the land of his adoption for the land of his birth, 
leaving pleasant Fenzile for the shrewd pleasantry 
of his own folk ... A little while of Ulster 
and he would be coming back again . . . One’s 
heart should lift the glory of the world,, the bold 
line of Ulster and the lavish color of Syria; the 
sincere, dour folk of Ulster and the warmth of 
Fenzile . . . He should have left so warmly. 
“In a little while, dearest, I ’ll be back and my 
heart will speak to your twin green eyes.” “Yes, 


THE WRESTLER FROM ALEPPO 217 


Zan. I ’ll be here.” But he had left dourly. 
And Fenzile had watched him go with quivering 
lip . . . Oh, damn himself for his suspicions, 
for his annoyance, and damn the fatuous Arab 
fool for arousing therrl . . . Christ, if only he 
had that fellow on board ship. And suddenly he 
met him, with his attendants and hangers-on. 
The wrestler drew aside with his insolent smile. 
Campbell’s temper broke loose. 

“Listen, O certain person,” he insulted the 
Aleppo man, “there is a street in Beirut down 
which it does not please me to see you go.” 

“Will the foreign gentleman tell me,” the 
wrestler’s voice drawled, and he smelled his rose, 
“who will stop a Moslem from going down a 
Moslem street?” 

“By God, I would!” The Syrians of Ahmet 
Ali’s escort gathered around, smiling. 

“The foreign gentleman forgets that I am the 
wrestler from Aleppo.” 

“Just so. I happen to be a bit of a wrestler 
myself.” 

“Some day perhaps the foreign gentleman will 
condescend to try a fall with me.” 

Syrians, Egyptians, Turks, were pouring from 
all quarters. Six French soldiers, walking gap- 
ingly along the bazaars, stopped wonderingly. 

“Dites, les soldats,” Shane called. “Vous ne 


2i8 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


voulez pas voir quelque chose d’interessant?^’ 

“Mais si, Monsieur!” 

“Eh bien, je vais lutter contre Thomme avec la 
rose. C’est un lutteur arabe. Voulez-vous-y 
assister ?” 

“Mais, pour bien sur, Monsieur.” 

“All right, then, by God!” Shane looked 
square at Ahmet Ali. “We ’ll wrestle right here 
and now.” 

“But the stones, the street,” Ahmet Ali looked 
surprised. “You might get hurt.” 

“We ’ll wrestle here and now.” 

“Oh, all right.” The Arab lifted an expres- 
sive shoulder. Carefully he removed the great 
white robe and handed it to an attendant. To 
another he gave the rose. Shane handed his coat 
and hat to a saturnine French corporal. Ahmet 
Ali took his shirt off. Kicked away his sandals. 
There was the dramatic appearance of an im- 
mense bronze torso. The Syrians smiled. The 
French soldiers looked judicially grave. Ahmet 
Ali stood talking for an instant with one of his 
men, a lean bilious-seeming Turk. The Turk was 
urging something with eagerness. The wrestler’s 
soft girl’s face had concentrated into a mask of 
distaste. He was shaking his head. He did n’t 
like something. 


THE WRESTLER FROM ALEPPO 219 


“How God-damned long are you going to keep 
me here?” 

Ahmet turned. There was a smile on his face, 
as of amused, embarrassed toleration. He was 
like a great athlete about to box with a small boy. 
And the boy in earnest. 

“Ready ?” he asked. 

“Any time,” Shane snapped. 

“All right.” 

Very easily he came forward over the cobbled 
street. He was like some immense bronze come 
suddenly to life and shambling. Like the brazen 
servant Thomas Aquinas made under the influence 
of particular stars. His great brown shoulders, 
his barreled chest, his upper arms like a man’s 
leg, his packed forearms, his neck like a bull’s, 
his shaven head. All seemed superhuman, and 
then came his shy embarrassed smile, his troubled 
eyes. One felt he hated to do this . . . 

He dropped suddenly, easily, into his wrestler’s 
crouch. His shoulders swayed lightly. He 
pawed like a bear. 

Campbell stood easily, left foot forward, like 
a boxer. His left arm shot out suddenly. The 
heel of his hand stopped, jolted, Ahmet on the 
chin. The Syrian shook his head. Pawed again. 
Campbell slapped him on the forearms, jolted 


220 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


him again on the chin, broke away easily to the 
right. Ahmet’s brown forehead frowned. 
“Don’t be childish,” he seemed to chide Campbell. 
The crowd pressed. The French soldiers rapped 
them back with the scabbard of their sidearms. 
En arrierey les puantSy en arriere! “Back, sons 
of polecats, get back.” The scabbards clacked 
like slapsticks. 

Ahmet Ali stood up straighter. He wanted to 
get away from that annoying hand on his chin. 
His forearms moved faster now, like brown pis- 
tons. There was a slight frown on his face. 
He was becoming impatient. Shane broke again 
to the right. Ahmet followed, his immense hands 
poised. Campbell feinted for the chin again with 
his left hand. The wrestler’s smile flickered. 
His right arm went out in guard. Campbell 
shifted, caught the brown wrist in his right hand, 
his left hand shot forward to the chin again. 
He brought forward all his forces to twisting 
that gigantic arm. He held the Syrian locked. 
The right arm began to give. If he could only 
shift his feet, get some sort of leverage. But 
how in God’s name, how? How could he get 
behind. With an immense wrench of shoulders 
Ahmet got free. He stood for an instant, nurs- 
ing his numbed wrist. He nodded and grinned. 
“That was n’t bad,” he seemed to say. The lean 


THE WRESTLER FROM ALEPPO 221 


bilious Turk on the edge of the crowd began talk- 
ing viciously. The saturnine French corporal 
turned and smacked him terribly across the nose 
with the edge of the scabbard of his bayonet. 
‘‘Et-ta sceurP* He had the air of a school- 
master reproving a refractory pupil. But his 
language was obscene and his blow broke the 
man’s nose . . . He vouchsafed no further in- 
terest in the Turk, but turned to watch the 
wrestling, twirling an oiled mustache . . . 

The Syrian closed his mouth, breathed heavily 
through his nostrils. His brow corrugated. 
His eyes became pinpoints. He was a workman 
out to do a job. He began to weave in, his 
brown arms describing slow arabesques. The 
crowd around became oppressively silent. They 
breathed hissingly. 

Shane feinted, dodged, broke away. Dog- 
gedly Ahmet Ali followed. Faster than time, 
Shane’s right hand shot out and gripped the 
wrestler’s right wrist. His right foot hooked 
around the Syrian’s right ankle. He pulled 
downward with sudden, vicious effort. Ali 
crashed forward on his face, a great brown hulk 
like an overturned bronze statue. Shane stooped 
down for either the half-Nelson and hammer- 
lock, or full Nelson . . . An instant too long of 
hesitation. Light as a lightweight acrobat 


222 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


Ahmet Ali had rolled aside, put palm to ground, 
sprung to his feet. His face was bloody, his right 
knee shook. With the back of his hand he 
wiped the blood from his eyes. There was a 
twitter ■ from the Syrians. The wrestler lum- 
bered forward again ... A little quake of fear 
came into Campbell’s being. There was an im- 
personal doggedness about the wrestler from 
Aleppo’s eyes, a sense of inevitability . . . 
Shane’s eyes shifted, right and left . . . 

Then suddenly, the wrestler had him . . . 

He felt a twirl to his shoulder, and then he 
was pinioned by two immense brown arms. 
They caught him above the elbows around the 
chest. First they were like boys’ arms, light. 
They became firm as calipers. They settled, 
snugged. Then they tightened slowly, with im- 
mense certainty. There was something about it 
like the rise of the tide. A gigantic cable around 
his chest. At his shoulder-blades the Syrian’s 
pectoral muscles pressed like shallow knobs of 
steel. His arms began to hurt. His breathing 
began to be hard with every output of breath. 
The arms tightened . . . All his vitality was 
flying through his opened mouth . . . He 
hit futilely with his knuckles at the rope-like sin- 
ews of the brown forearms . . . His head 
throbbed like drums ... In an instant he 


THE WRESTLER FROM ALEPPO 223 


would be like a bag bound midways ... his 
ribs giving like saplings in the wind . . . Lights 
danced . . . 

Stupidly he looked down at the clasped hands, 
and a sudden fury of fighting came on him . . . 
Something terrible, sinister, cold. His free 
hands caught the Syrian’s little finger, tugged, 
pulled, bent, tore . . . He wanted to shred it 
from its hand . . . Rip it like silk . . . He felt 
the great arms about him quiver, grow uncer- 
tain . . . Tear, tear! . . . 

With a little whine like a dog’s, the wrestler 
let go . . . He nursed the finger for an instant 
like a hurt child . . . Opening and shutting the 
hand . . . Looking worried . . . Great waves 
of air came into Shane’s chest . . . His knees 
were weak . . . The Syrian walked around an 
instant, thinking, worrying . . . He was serious 
now . . . Suddenly he plunged . . . 

But swifter than Ahmet’s plunge was thought 
and memory ... Of a day at Nagasaki . . . 
of a little brown smiling Japanese and a burly 
square-head sailorman ... Of the Japanese’s 
courteous explanation in smiling Pidgin . . . 
With luck and timing he could do it . . . Fast, 
but not too fast, and steady . . . Handsomely, 
as the ship-word was . . . There! 

The hands trained to whipping lanyards 


224 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


caught Ahmet’s wrists as he plunged. Shane’s 
right leg went outward, foot sunk home. Back- 
ward he fell, leg taunt, hands pulling. Above 
him Ahmet’s great bulk soared, hurtled gro- 
tesquely. For an instant; a flash . . . The 
squeals of startled Syrians, the panic of 
feet . . . Then a crash, an immense crash . . . 

A long shuddering, frightened eh from the 
crowd ... A French soldier mumbling . . . 

^Cre nom de nom de nom de nom de Jesus 
Chrir 

He staggered to his feet, put his hand to his 
face ... It came away dripping . . . His face 
was like the leeward deck of a flying yacht . . . 
swimming ... A few feet away Syrians and 
French soldiers were milling over . . . some- 
thing . . . The corporal wrenched Shane’s arm< 
into his coat. Pushed his hat into his hands. 

**Courez donc^ le citoyen . . . Come on, get 
away . . . Get ...” 

“Is he dead?” 

“No, not dead . . . But get away . . . 
He ’ll never wrestle again . . . Vite, alorsE^ 

He pushed him down the street. 

“But—” 

“Go on. We can take care of ourselves 
. . .” He shoved him roughly forward . . . 
Shane staggered, walked, ran a little . . . 


i 










THE WRESTLER FROM ALEPPO 225 


Behind him a few blocks away, an ominous hum. 
He ran on . . . Some one was shrieking . . . 

hala ya ma hala Kobal en Nosara . . . 
How sweet, oh, how sweet, to kill the Christians 
. . The crack of a gun . . . Tumult . . . 
The long Moslem war-song . . . Two rifles. 
nous, les Franqais ... A nous, la Legion!*' 

A nausea, a great weakness, an utter contempt 
for himself came over him in the boat pulling 
him toward his ship . . . God I He had 
fought with and nearly killed — possibly killed 
— a man for personal hatred! From irritation, 
and in a public place! A spectacle for donkey- 
boys and riff-raff of French towns . . . He 
tottered on the ship’s ladder . . . The sailors 
caught him. The mate ran up. 

“Anything wrong, sir? You look like a 
ghost.” 

“No, nothing. All aboard? Everything 
ready? Is she a-drawing? Anchor a-peak? 
All right. Get her up . . .” 


§ 12 

“Arif Bey, where is my wife? I come back to 
Beirut. I find my house deserted. My ser- 


226 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


vants gone. Where is Fenzile? Is she here?” 

“No, son.” 

“Is she dead?” 

“No — no, son, I wish she were . . .” 

“Then where is she gone? With whom?” 

“Trebizond. Stamboul. Cairo. I don’t 
know where.” 

“With whom?” 

“With — oh, don’t bother yourself, son. For- 
get her.” 

“With whom? I must know.” 

“With — do you remember that wrestler you 
crippled, the wrestler from Aleppo?” 

“With Ahmet Ali ! Impossible ! I all but 
killed him.” 

“She went, though . . .” 

“No, uncle, no. If he had been strong she 
might, but, — ” 

The old Druse chief shook his head, smiled in 
his beard, a little, bitter, wise smile. 

“You were never sick with her, never poor.” 

“No, never sick, never poor.” 

“Well, he was sick and poor, so she went with 
him.” 

“Then she loved him all along.” 

“ No, son Zan, she loved you — until you threw 
him. She might have been amused at seeing him 


THE WRESTLER FROM ALEPPO 227 


pass the house, laugh a little, be flattered . . . 
Such a big fool, and she a little woman 
. . . But she would never have left you . . 

“But she did.” 

“Well . . . after the fall, he had no friends 
. . . the Christians despised him, the Moslems 
hated him . . . There was no train to follow him 
... he went on crutches . . . He passed her 
door and looked, and looked . . . What could 
she do but come out ... It was her fault, after 
all . . . And she was very tender-hearted . . .” 

“Tender-hearted?” 

“Didn’t you know?” 

“No, I never knew.” 

“She used to cry when the leaves fell from the 
trees ... You didn’t know your wife well?” 

“No, sir, I did not.” 

“Well, she is gone, Zan . . . Where, one 
does n’t know . . . What will become of her, 
one does n’t know. Destiny is like a blind camel. 
He does n’t know against what he stumbles. We 
do not see him come . . . Only when the harm is 
done, do we say; We might have listened for 
the tinkle of his bell ... Eh, one is young and 
does everything and sees nothing. One is old 
and sees everything and does nothing. There is 
no mystery . . . only ignorance . . .” 


228 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


“You say she was very tender-hearted, my 
uncle. I did n’t know ... I thought of her as 
something else . . .” 

“Son Zan, you had better forget her in an- 
other woman. Listen son, I will give you Aziyed 
in marriage, my own daughter. She is just as 
pretty and younger and not so foolish as Fen- 
zile.” 

“Oh, no, sir. No!” 

“Well, I don’t blame you.” 

“It is n’t that, Arif Bey. It is n’t that. I ’m 
very beholden to you . . . for your kindness 
. . . and your patience ... I did n’t know . . . 
And I thought I knew everything nearly, 
and am so ignorant . . . Why until now I did n’t 
know even this — the sun shone so brightly, and 
life was so pleasant, I thought that was the way 
of life . . . But I was in love with Fenzile . . . 
And that was what made everything so wonderful 
... in love with the wife you gave me . . . 
head over heels, sir . . . just simply — head over 
heels . . .” 


PART FIVE 


THE VALLEY OF THE BLACK PIG 



THE VALLEY OF THE BLACK PIG 


§ I 


O him, for a long time now, the sea had been 



1 only water. All the immense pelagic plain, 
dotted with ships; with bergs of ice, like cathe- 
drals; with waves that curled or swept in huge 
rhythms; with curents defined in lines and whorls; 
with gulls that mewed and 'whales that blew like 
pretty fountains ; with the little Portuguese men- 
of-war; with the cleaving of flying fish and the 
tumbling of dolphins, all this was water. All 
this joyous green, this laughing white, the deep 
reflective blue, the somber exquisite gray, was 
water. An infinity of barrels of water, immense 
vats of water, water, wet water . . . 

To him, for a long time now, a ship had been 
a means of keeping afloat on water, of going from 
place to place. All its brave strakes, its plung- 
ing bows, its healing beams, were wood, such as 
one makes a house of, or a tinker’s cart. All 
the miracle of sails; the steady foresail; the sen- 
sitive jibs; the press canvas delicate as bubbles; 
the reliable main; the bluff topsails; topgallants 


232 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


like eager horses; the impertinent skysails; the 
jaunty moonraker, were just canvas stretched on 
poles. All the pyramidal wonder of them, fore, 
main, and mizzen, were not like a good rider’s 
hands to a horse ; compelling, coaxing, curbing the 
wind, they were utilities. The spinning wheel 
was a mechanical device. Port was left, and 
starboard only the right hand. The chiming of 
the ship’s bell was not an old sweet ceremony but 
a fallible thing, not exact as the ticking of a cheap 
watch. And ‘‘The lights are burning bright, 
sir,” was not a paean of comfort, but a mechan- 
ical artisans’ phrase . . . 

To him, for a long time now, they who went 
down to the sea in ships were men only; men such 
as sell things in shops or scrub poorhouse floors, 
or dig tracks for a railroad. The slovenly 
Achill man, who would face death with a grin, the 
shambling Highlander who on occasion could 
spring to the shrouds like a cat; the old bos'un 
who had been for years a castaway on Tierra del 
Fuego; the wizened chantey-man with his melo- 
deon, who could put new vigor into tired backs, 
with his long-drag chanteys, like “Blow the Man 
Down,” and “Dead Horse,” and “Whisky John- 
nie,” and short-drags like “Paddy Doyle” and 
“Haul the Bowline,” and capstans like “Home- 
ward Bound” and “Wide Missouri,” and pump- 


THE VALLEY OF THE BLACK PIG 233 


ing chariteys like “Storm Along” ; the keen men at 
the wheel and the hawk-eyed lookout; the sailor 
swinging the lead in the bows, with a wrist and 
forearm of steel — all these were only men, fol- 
lowing the sea because they knew no better. 
And the mate who would wade into a mob of 
twenty with swinging fists, and the navigator who 
could calculate to a hair’s-breadth where they 
were by observing the unimaginable stars — they 
were not of the craft of Noah, they were men 
who knew their job . . . just men ... as a 
ticket-clerk on a railroad is a man . . . 

To him, for a long time now, ports were ports, 
only places whither one went to get or deliver 
cargo. Baltimore, like some sweet old lady; 
Para, heavy, sinister with rain; Rio, like some 
sparkling jewel; Belfast, dour, efficient, sincere; 
Hamburg, dignified, gemiitlich; Lisbon, quiet as 
a cathedral — they were not entities, they were just 
collections of houses covering men and women. 
And men were either fools or crooks, and women 
were either ugly bores or pretty — ^bitches . . . 
Men and women, they were born crudely, as a calf 
is born of a cow, they lived foolishly or meanly, 
and they died . . , And they were hustled out 
of the house quickly . . . They thought them- 
selves so important, and they lacked the faith- 
fulness of the dog, the cleanliness of wild animals. 


234 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


the strength of horses, the beauty of tropic birds, 
the mathematical science of the spider, the swift- 
ness of fishes . . . And they grew old abomin- 
ably, the women’s breasts falling, the men getting 
pot-bellies . . . How the devil had they ever ar- 
rogated to themselves the lordship of created 
things ? 

To him, for a long time now, the world had 
been, was, one mean street . . . 


§ 2 

Of all cities, none was better calculated to 
foster this mood of his than the one to which 
his business now brought him — Buenos Aires on 
the Plate. Leaving Liverpool with steel and 
cotton, there was an immensity of ocean to be 
traversed, until one came to the river mouth. 
Then fifty leagues of hard sailing to the abomin- 
able anchorage . . . 

Here now was a city growing rich, ungracefully 
— a city of arrogant Spanish colonists, of poverty- 
stricken immigrants, of down-trodden lower 
classes ... a city of riches ... a city of 
blood . . . Here mud, here money . . . 


TTIE VALLEY OF THE BLACK PIG 235 


Into a city half mud hovels, half marble-fronted 
houses, gauchos drove herd upon herd of cattle, 
baffled, afraid. Here Irish drove streams of 
gray bleating sheep. Here ungreased bullock 
carts screamed. From the blue-grass pampas they 
drove them, where the birds sang, and water 
rippled, where was the gentleness of summer rain, 
where was the majesty of great storms, clouds 
magnificently black and jagged lightning, where 
were great white moons and life-giving suns, 
where was the serpent in the grass, and the unique 
tree, where were swift horses . . . Beeves that 
had once been red awkward calves, and then 
sullen, stupid little bullocks, and then proud 
young bulls, with graceful horns . . . Such as 
earnest Christians believed had lowed at the 
manger of Christ born in Bethlehem . . . And 
stupid, suspicious sheep, that had once been white 
gamboling lambs, playful as pups, and so ridicu- 
lously innocent looking! — didn’t they call their 
Lord Agnus Dei, Lamb of God? — and gentle 
ewes and young truculent rams, like red-headed 
schoolboys, eager for a fray, and shamefaced 
wethers . . . And by their thousands and their 
tens of thousands they drove them into Buenos 
Aires, and slew them for their hides . . . 

But this was sentimental, Shane said. Bul- 
locks and sheep must die, and the knife is merci- 


236 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


ful as any death. But ought n’t these things be 
done by night, privily, as they should bury the 
dead? Must they drive down these infinities of 
creatures, and slaughter them openly and cal- 
lously, until the air was salt with blood, until the 
carrion crows hovered over the city in battalions? 
Had they no feeling, had they no shame? Must 
the pitiful machinery of life be exposed so airily? 

Of course it must, he knew. These things had 
to be done in bulk. Now were n’t the middle 
ages when one killed a cow because one had to 
eat: one killed a sheep because the winter was 
coming when woolens were needed. All Europe 
needed shoes, saddles, combs, anti-macassars, 
afghans — what not? And Europe was a big 
place, so in bulk they must bellow and bleat and 
die, and have their hides torn from their piti- 
ful bodies, salted, and chucked in the hold of a 
ship. 

Of course it must. That was civilization. 


§ 3 

From long ago, from far away, came the 
chime of old romance, but very thin, like 
the note of a warm silver bell, that could not 


THE VALLEY OF THE BLACK PIG 237 


hold its own against this blatancy. Came ancient 
immortal names — Magellan, that hound of the 
world, whining fiercely, nosing for openings that 
he might encircle the globe, he had been up the 
silver river. Sebastian Cabot, too, the grim ma- 
rauder, seeking to plunder the slender Indians, 
he had been here. It was he had christened the 
great stream — Rio de la Plata, the river where 
silver is. And Pedro Gomez, who headed the 
greatest expedition the Argentine ever saw, and 
founded and named the city. And fighting 
Beresford, the British general who took it from 
Spain, and Whitelock who lost it again . . . 
Campbell could see his bluff grenadiers, their 
faces blackened with powder, their backs to the 
wall, a strange land, a strange enemy, and blessed 
England so far away . . . And the last of the 
Spanish viceroys, with a name like an organ peal, 
Baltazar Hidalgo de Cisneros y Latorre — a 
great gentleman, he had been wounded fighting 
Nelson off Cape Trafalgar. Campbell could al- 
most see his white Spanish face, his pointed 
fingers, his pointed beard, his pontifical walk 
. . . And of them nothing remained. Nothing 
of Magellan, nothing of Cabot, nothing of 
Gomez, nothing of staunch Beresford, or bluff 
John Whitlock, or of the great hidalgo . . . 
Stat magni nominis umhraf . . . No, not even 


238 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


that. The shadows of the great names had 
gone. The dim chime of a silver bell drowned 
by the lowing of dying cattle, by the screech of 
bullock-carts, by the haggling of merchants over 
the price of hides . . . 

But he could not remain on board ship in port. 
Ships, he had enough of them ! There was noth- 
ing to do but go ashore, landing at high tide at 
one of the two lugubrious piers, and make his 
way toward the squares . . . past the blazing 
water-front where the prostitutes chanted like 
demented savages, past the saloons where the 
sailors drank until they dropped, or were knifed, 
or robbed, or crimped. 'Down the ill-lit streets, 
which must be trodden carefully, lest one should 
stumble into a heap of refuse. Down to the 
Plaza Victoria, with its dim arcades, or to the 
25 de Mayo, with its cathedral, its stunted para- 
dise trees. And from the houses came shafts of 
light, and the sound of voices, thump of guitars 
like little drums, high arguments, shuffle of cards. 
. . . Dark shadows and lonely immigrants, and 
the plea of some light woman’s bully — ^^cosa oc- 
culta . . A dim watery moon, the portico of 
the cathedral, a woman exaggerating her 
walk. . . . Pah! . . . immigrants fearful of 
the coming snow ... A vigilante strutting 


THE VALLEY OF THE BLACK PIG 239 


like a colonel . . . Mournful pampa winds . . . 

The theaters? Sugary Italian opera; a stark 
Spanish drama, too intense for any but Latins, 
foreign; debauched vaudeville, incredibly vulgar; 
or at the concert-hall, sentimental Teutonic and 
Anglo-Saxon songs, with an audience of grave un- 
critical exiles — a little pathetic. No! 

The clubs? Oh, damn the clubs! A blaze 
of light and raucous voices, ships’ masters, ships’ 
chandlers, merchants, discussing the riddle of 
local politics, and the simony of office; or the 
price of hides, and freight charges; how a ship’s 
master could turn a pretty penny in bringing out 
shoddy clothes, or pianos — Jesus! they were crazy 
for pianos here ! Rattle of glasses and strik- 
ing of matches. Bluff, ceremonious salutations. 

“Well, captain, what kind of a trip did you 
make out?” 

“Pretty fair, captain.” 

“Will you have a little snifter, captain?” 

“Well, captain, seeing that it ’s you — ” 

“Paddy, a little of what ails him for the cap- 
tain — ” 

And after a while the whisky would dis- 
solve the ceremony, and would come nauseating 
intimacies. 

“We shipped a stewardess in Hull — ” or 


240 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


“There was an Irish girl in the steerage, a rav- 
ing beauty, and when I saw her, I said: Wait. 
So— 

They were all the same. Give them whisky 
and time and the talk would come around to easy 
money and easy women. All were the same, 
bluff, sentimental, animal, all but the one or two 
hawk-eyed, close-lipped men who came and went 
silently, who drank little and drank by themselves. 
These men made the really big money, but it 
was n’t easy; they took a chance with their lives, 
smuggling slaves from Africa for the Argentine 
plantations, or silver from Chile and Peru. But 
as for the rest, easy money, easy women ! 

Well, what was Campbell fussing about? 
Was n’t he too making easy money, bringing 
agricultural steel and cotton goods here and tak- 
ing away his tally of hides? 

And as to easy women, was n’t there Hedda 
Hagen? 


§ 4 

A ship’s master had introduced him to her at 
a band concert in one of the public squares — a 
tall Amazonian woman with her hair white as 
corn, and eyes the strange light blue of ice. Her 


THE VALLEY OF THE BLACK PIG 241 


head was uptilted — a brave woman. The intro- 
duction had a smirking ceremony about it that 
defined Froken Hagen’s position as though in so 
many words. Her bow was as distant to Shane 
as his salutation was curt to her. Shane was sud- 
denly annoyed. 

The captain of the American boat talked in- 
cessantly while the band blared on. Strolling 
Argentines eyed the woman’s blond beauty at a 
respectful distance. They trotted to and fro. 
They loped. They postured. She paid no at- 
tention. To her they were nonexistent. To the 
American skipper’s conversation she replied only 
with a flicker of the eyelids, a fleeting smile of her 
lips. Shane she seemed to ignore. She was so 
clean, so cool, so damnably self-possessed. 

“Froken Hagen,” Campbell ventured, “are n’t 
you sick of all this? Captain Lincoln says you 
have been here for five years. Aren’t you dead 
tired of it?” 

“No.” Her voice was a strong soprano 
timbre. 

“Don’t you want to get back to the North 
again?” 

“Often.” She had a quiet aloof smile. Some- 
where was the impression of a gentlewoman. 
She did not mean to be abrupt. She was just 
immensely self-possessed. 


242 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


It occurred to Shane suddenly that he liked this 
woman. He liked her dignity, her grave com- 
posure. He liked her coolness, her almost 
Viennese grace. He liked her features; but for 
the wideness of her mouth, and the little promin- 
ence of chin, she would have been immensely 
beautiful. Her corn-like hair, massively braided, 
must be like a mane when down, and beneath her 
Paris frock he could sense her deep bosom, great 
marble limbs. Her voice had the cool sweet 
beauty of Northern winds . . . Her eyes were 
steady, her chin uptilted. Somewhere, some 
time, somehow she had mastered fate. 

About, in the gas-lit square, escorted, guarded, 
went other women, reputable women. Great 
rawboned women, daughters of Irish portenos^ 
with the coarseness of the Irish peasant in their 
faces, the brogue of the Irish peasant on their 
Spanish, but punctiliously Castilian as to man- 
ners; gross Teutonic women; fluffy sentimental 
Englishwomen, bearing exile bravely, but think- 
ing long for the Surrey downs; gravid Italian 
women, clumsy in the body, sweet and wistful in 
the face; Argentines, clouded with powder, 
liquid of eyes, on their lips a soft little down that 
would in a few years be an abomination unto the 
Lord; women of mixed breed, with the kink of 


THE VALLEY OF THE BLACK PIG 243 


Africa in their hair, or the golden tint of the 
Indian in their skin. Good women! And yet 
. . . For grace, for coolness, for cleanliness, the 
venal Swedish girl outshone them all. . . 

“Frdken Hagen,” Campbell said, “may I call 
on you some time?” 

“If you like.” 

“Does that mean you don’t want me to come?” 

She smiled at him. 

“Mr. Campbell,” she laughed gently, “you 
know very well what I am. If you don’t call on 
me it won’t mean anything to me. If you do call 
I think I ’ll be rather glad. Because on first ap- 
pearances I like you. But do whatever you like. 
I have no wiles.” 

“Thank God for that!” 

Lincoln, master of the Katurah Knopp, listened 
in with a silent chuckle. She was a queer one, 
Hedda was. And Campbell, he was a queer one, 
too. Two queer ones together. Hedda was all 
right, but a man sickened of her quick. She 
was n’t what you might call warm. No affection ; 
that ’s what a man missed far from home, af- 
fection. Yes, affection. Hedda had none. She 
was a fine woman, but she had no affection. He 
liked to see men get stung. In a few days Camp- 
bell would be down at the club with a face as long 


244 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


as to-day and to-morrow. He would call for a 
drink angrily. 

“Well, captain, what’s got into you? You 
don’t look happy.” 

And Campbell, like the others, would grumble 
something about a God-damned big Swede. 

“Hey, what’s wrong? Ain’t Hedda treated 
you right?” 

“Sure, she treated me right,” he would say as 
the others said, “but God damn! that woman’s 
not human. Take away that rot-gut and gi’ me 
whisky. I got a touch o’ chill.” 

Lincoln had seen it all before. He liked to 
see it all the time. He chuckled as Shane turned 
to him. 

“Lincoln, are you seeing this lady home?” 

“Not if you want to.” 

“I don’t want to break up any arrangements 
of yours.” 

“Tell the truth,” Lincoln said, “I ’ve got a 
little party to-night. A party as is a party — 
Spanish girls, Spanish dancers ... I wish I 
could take you, but it ain’t my party . . .” 

“Then I ’ll see Miss Hagen home.” 

Dog-gone, Lincoln would have to go down to 
the club and tell ’em how Campbell of the Maid 
of the Isles got stuck with the human iceberg! 


THE VALLEY OF THE BLACK PIG 245 


S 5 

Without, the west wind had increased sud- 
denly, a cold steady wind, coasting down the Ar- 
gentine pampas, bending the sparse trees and 
giant thistle, ruffling the river, shallowing it, until 
to-morrow many a poor sailorman would regret 
his optimistic anchorage . . . Shane shivered 
. . . To-morrow October would be making a din 
in the streets . . . And the poor skippers fight- 
ing their way round the Horn, icy winds and head 
seas and immense gray dirty-bearded waves . . . 
To-morrow three men were to be shot in the 25 
de Mayo for a political offense, and Shane could 
see them in the bleak dawn, three frightened 
stanch figures; the soldiers would be blowing 
their fingers in the cold air, and their triggers 
would be like ice to the touch . . . the shoddy 
tragedy . . . 

But within the room was warm, a little fire of 
coal in the unusual grate, and the soft and mel- 
low lights of candles, and here and there gauchos’ 
blankets on the wall, and here a comfortable 
chair and there a table of line, and brass things 
. . . clean and ascetic, and yet something 


246 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


womanly about the place, the grace and composi- 
tion of things . . . And with her coming into 
her house, Hedda Hagen’s manner had changed 
gently . . . She was no longer frigid, aloof . . . 
She unbent into calm smiles, and the grace of a 
hostess of the big world . . . the quiet masonic 
signal of a certain caste . . . 

“I wonder,” he said; “am I dreaming?” 

She paused suddenly. She had taken her hat 
off, and was touching things on the tables with 
her large fine hands. She turned her head to- 
ward him. There was a half smile in her eyes. 

“Why?” 

“It does n’t seem right.” 

“That you never saw me before, that you are 
here in this house after meeting me half an hour 
ago, and that you can stay here the night?” 

“Yes.” 

“Well, it ’s true.” 

She was once more the hostess. It was as if 
some one had sprung nimbly from a little height 
to the ground. 

“I can’t give you any whisky. But I can make 
you tea. Or have my maid brew you some cof- 
fee.” 

“Is that a Russian samovar?” 

“Yes.” 


THE VALLEY OF THE BLACK PIG 


247 


“Then I ’ll have tea.” 

So queer! Without the wind blustered and 
the little din of it crept into the room somehow, 
and within was warmth, and the stillness of still 
trees. And grace. Beauty moved like an act- 
ress on the stage. All her motions were har- 
monious-, could have gone to some music on the 
violin. Now it was the easy dropping to her 
knees as she lit the quaint Russian teapot, now 
an unconscious movement of her hand to push 
back a braid of her hair, now the firm certain 
motion of her strong white unringed fingers. 
Now her large graceful body moved like some 
heroic statue that had become quick with life. 
The thought came into his head, somehow, that 
if he had had a sister he would have liked her to 
have been like this splendid blond woman . . . 

Yet into this house, where she had settled like 
some strange bird in an alien land, came ships’ 
masters, reeking with drink, came merchants with 
their minds full of buying and selling and all the 
petty meannesses of trade, came dark Latins 
who hankered for blond women . . . 

“God! I can’t understand.” 

She came toward him frankly . . . 

Amigo mio, have you a right to understand?” 

“I ’m sorry.” 


248 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


“No, but — see! You and I have often met. 
I mean: there is a plane of us, who must be loyal 
to one another. You understand. And to you, 
to one of us, I don’t want to lie. Only certain 
persons have a right to ask. A father, a mother, 
a child, a sister or brother or husband. But 
our destinies touch only, hardly even that. Will 
never grip, bind. There is no right you have, 
beyond what — you buy; and there are things — I 
don’t sell.” 

“I ’m sorry,” Shane turned aside. “I was just 
carried away. But I should go.” 

“Do you want to go?” 

“No.” 

“Then stay. Others stay.” 

“But—” 

“Are you better than the others? Think.” 

“No,” he thought. “Of course not. Worse 
perhaps. I know better.” 

“You are nearly as honest as I am,” she 
laughed. She put her hand out in a great frank 
gesture. 

“If I can smile, surely you can.” Her fingers 
beckoned. “Come, don’t be silly.” 

He caught her hands and laughed with her. 
He had been acting like a boy in his twenties, 
and he a man of forty-two ... 


THE VALLEY OF THE BLACK PIG 249 


§ 6 

He had thought somehow that in this affair 
of Hedda he would find — oh, something: that 
once more the moon would take on its rippling 
smile and the sun its sweet low laughter, and 
the winds be no longer a matter of physics, 
but strong entities. Quickly, unconsciously, the 
thought had come to him . . . With the wife of 
his young days had come the magic of romance, 
and with Clalre-Anne of Marseilles had come a 
sublime storm of passion, and with the Arab lady 
had come the scheme of an ordered life, good 
composition and rich color . . . They had lasted 
but little and gone as a rainbow goes . . . With 
Hedda there was nothing ... It was just abom- 
inably wrong . . . 

Here he was, young — for his forty-two he 
was young, — supple, successful in his way, rich if 
you wanted to put it in that word. And no heart 
for life; listless. It was wrong . . . All he 
could think of doing was to be intimate with an 
easy woman. No zest for her great noble 
frame, her surge of flaxen hair. The veneer of 


250 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


conventional good manners, conventional good 
taste, only made the actuality of it more appall- 
ing . . . she with the gifts of life and grace, he 
with his, and all they could do was be physically 
intimate . . . And she took money with a little 
smile, contemptuous of herself, contemptuous of 
him . . . They both knew better, yet there you 
were . . . God! Even animals had the excuse 
of nature’s indomitable will! 

Yes, this made him face things he had been try- 
ing to pass casually by. Forty-two, a touch of 
gray at the temples, a body like a boy’s, hooded 
eyes like a hawk’s, and a feeling in him somehow 
that an organ — his heart maybe — was dead; not 
ailing — just unalive. Once he had zest, and he 
did n’t even have despair now. If he could only 
have despair . . . 

Despair was healthy. It meant revolt. A man 
might sob, gnash his teeth, batter walls with his 
bare fists, but that only meant he was alive in 
every fiber. He might curse the stars, but he was 
aware of their brilliance. He might curse the 
earth that would one day take his lifeless body, 
but he must know its immense fecundity. A man 
in revolt, in despair, was a healthy man. 

But despair was so futile. Ah, there it was! 
Life’s futility. It was the sense of that which 


THE VALLEY OF THE BLACK PIG 251 


had eaten him like a vile leprosy. Mental 
futility, spiritual futility. Of physical he did not 
know. All that was left him of his youth was a 
belief in God. At sea he was too close to the 
immense mechanism of the stars, on land too close 
to milling millions, not to believe, not to accept 
him as an incontrovertible fact. 

But the God of degenerate peoples, the antag- 
onistic, furious, implacable God — that was a ridic- 
ulous conception. A cheap, a vain one. “As 
flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods.” Was 
n’t that how Shakspere’s blind king had uttered 
it? “They kill us for their sport.” How 
strangely flattering — to believe that the Immen- 
sity that had conceived and wrought the unbe- 
lievable universe should deign to consider man, 
so weak that a stone, a little slug of lead could 
kill him, an enemy worth bothering about. Man 
with his vanity, his broad fallibility, his poor 
natural functions I 

And as to the God of the optimists, how ridic- 
ulous, too. “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall 
not want.” So pathetic! They never saw that 
they did want. That for every well-filled body, 
there were a hundred haggard men. They 
thought of him as benevolent, firm but benevo- 
lent, like Mr. Gladstone. To them he was an 


252 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


infinitely superior vestryman with a tremendous 
power for dispensing coal and food to the poor. 
And the poor devils were so patient, so loyal. 
And so stupid; they thought that much flattery, 
much fear, would move Him. Their conception 
never even rose to considering God as a gentle- 
man, despising flattery and loathing fear. Poor, 
poor devils ! 

To Shane He existed', though how to think of 
Him was difficult. Why a man? Why not some 
strange thing of the air, as a cuttlefish is of the 
sea? Something tenuous, of immense brain 
power, of immense wilj. Something cold. But 
why even that? Why not, as the cabalists had 
it, a Figure, arithmetical or geometrical, a Sound 
... A Formula of some great undiscoverable 
indefinable Thought . . . He was cold. He was 
efficient. He had so much brains . . . 

It seemed to Shane that this optimism, this 
despair were strange mental drugs, going through 
the mental system as a depressant or a 
stimulant would go through the physical, creating 
illusions . . . illusions . . . and the sane man 
was one who had no illusions, not the mean- 
ing a man uses of the phrase when he has 
been jilted by a woman or wronged out of 
money by a friend, but actually, finitely, no 


THE VALLEY OF THE BLACK PIG 253 


illusions . . . He was sane, a few other men in 
the world must be sane, but the rest were drugged 
for their hell or their Fiddlers’ Green . . . 

Fiddlers’ Green! Good God! Fiddlers’ Green! 

His mind flashed back a moment to the shining 
isle, the green sward, the singing waves, the sun- 
light on the green jalousies, but strangely his mind 
could see nothing. He could no longer make a 
picture for himself. Symbols were barren alge- 
braic formulae. Not enchanters’ words. No 
light. No glamour. Only strange sounds rever- 
berating in the gray caverns of his head . . . 
Once in the dead past he could see the Isle of 
Pipers — no more ! It was n’t his past that was 
dead. The past lived. It was he was dead, he, 
his present, his future. 

Out of the gray caverns of his head came a 
thin echo of a word he had known and he a boy. 
The Valley of the Black Pig. A phrase from 
some old folk-tale heard on a wintry Antrim 
coast. Some prophecy of old wives that when 
the Boar without Bristles would appear in the 
Valley of the Black Pig, then the end of all things 
was nigh . . . He had a faint memory that 
somewhere in Roscommon was the Valley of the 
Black Pig . . . But that didn’t matter; what 
mattered was the memory it evoked . . . Gray, 
gray, gray . . . Gray hills, gray boulders, gray 


254 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


barren trees, a gray mist sluggishly rising from 
the ground, and a gray drizzle of rain, falling, 
so slowly . . . And gray rotting leaves beneath 
his feet ... A little wind that moaned among 
the boulders, and the cawing of unseen, horrible 
birds . . . Neither was there direction, nor time, 
nor space . . . Everything gray like the grayness 
of old women’s bodies . . . There was no sun, 
and the moon abhorred the valley. In such a 
place as this wandered the souls of women who 
had killed their children, of monks who at dark 
of night had said the Black Mass . . . Here 
were masters who had deserted tall, gallant ships 
. . . Hither witches rode on the bleak east wind, 
to be flogged by their masters and horribly 
caressed . . . The Valley of the Black Pig . . . 
Here were those who had read the frightful 
inscription on the altar of the Unknown God 
. . . Gilles de Rais, marshal of France, and 
Avicenna; Nicolas Flamel and his wife Petronella; 
Lady Alice Kyteler of Kilkenny, and Gerald of 
Desmond, the Great Earl; and newer names. Dee 
and Edward Kelly . . . Degraded majesty with 
soiled beards . . . Gray, gray . . . And the 
faint ghosts in cerecloths, and the horrible shapes 
of the mist . . . The drizzle of the rain, and 
the rustle of the Feet of the Goat . . . The caw- 


THE VALLEY OF THE BLACK PIG 255 


ing of strange birds and the wind among the 
boulders and souls, weeping, weeping — unhoping, 
undespairing, weeping, weeping . . . The Valley 
of the Black Pig . . . 

What was it? In God’s name what was it that 
had made him this way, his being suddenly life- 
less, like a cow that goes dry, or a field that is 
mysteriously, suddenly fallow . . . And wear- 
iness seemed immortal . . . What had led him 
into this dreadful cemetery of the mind? Had 
he gone too far in thought and emotion and come 
to a dreadful desert plane within himself . . . ? 
Had he eaten of the tree of which the cabalist 
wrote : 

Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat; 

But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou 
shalt not eat of it; for in the day that thou eatest 
thereof thou shalt surely die. 

Had he blundered on it unwittingly, eaten 
ignorantly and surely died? . . . Or was he going 
mad? Good God! Could that be it? Was 
there something they had n’t told him — a 
strange taint in his blood, or his mother’s blood 
. . . Would he end his days in a madhouse 
. . . What a fate, what a dreadful fate I A 
slavering gray-headed man, wandering through 


256 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


the Valley of the Black Pig, forever and for- 
ever? 

Better to end it now. 

Yes, but would that end it? The material 
envelope of cells and fluids gone, might there 
not . . . ? Christ! Worse off yet, if any- 
thing were left . . . There might be some- 
thing left; there was the trouble . . . One knew 
so little, so abominably little . . . Only mate- 
rial wisdom was certain, and that said: Don’t 
chance it . . . 

Drink? He had his men to think of, his ship 
... It might grip him. 

But was he forever doomed to this mournful 
weeping place, place of rain, place of mists, gray 
boulders, and moaning winds? Must he abide 
in the Valley of the Black Pig until the Boar 
without Bristles came lumbering out of the red 
west, and went grunting, mating ravenously, eat- 
ing prey of souls, until ‘he lay down in obscene 
sleep, and the stars one by one guttered like 
candles, and the sun shot into a vast explosion, 
and the moon was a handful of peat ashes, and 
the whole great universe snapped like a gunshot 
and the debris of all created things fell down- 
ward like a shattered wall, faster, faster, faster, 
to where, where, where? 


THE VALLEY OF THE BLACK PIG 257 


§ 7 

In the streets now the June snow fell, not 
the soft and flaky petals of the North, but a 
bitter steel-like snow, that whirled. And the 
winds of the pampas hurried like Furies through 
the sordid streets, and stopped to snarl, as a dog 
snarls, and now moaned, and now howled 
sharply, as a wolf howls. There was something 
cold, malignant, about it all . . . Old Irish 
writers said that hell was cold. An Ait Fiiar, 
they called it, the Cold Place. Ait gan chu gan 
chat, gan leanbh, ait gan ghean, gan ghaire, a 
place without a dog, or cat, or child, a place with- 
out affection or laughter . . . Had sainted 
Brendan come on Buenos Aires in winter on his 
voyage to Hy Brazil, and thought in his naivete 
that here was hell . . . ? And was he wrong? 

Cold of wolves ! It must have been like this in 
ancient Paris when Villon thieved and sang, and 
the wolves came clamoring at the gates . . . 
and the crusaders in warm Palestine ... Or in 
Russia — Siberia, a cold name . . . Here it was 
hell, but in Europe ... oh, different there! 


258 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


The heavy flakes, so solid, so wonderful, the 
laden trees, the great stretch of white. And in 
the houses the farmers blessing the snow, that 
would keep the ground warm and fertile for the 
coming year, that the blue flax might arise, and 
the fields of corn, with the great pleasance of 
the clover, and the golden-belted bees . . . And 
the turf fires of Ulster, and Christmas coming, 
and after that Candlemas, and then March of 
the plowing, and glossy crows busy in the fields 
. . . Always something to see ahead . . . 
Not in Ireland only, but England, the jingle of 
bells and the people of ruddy faces . . . And 
in Germany, too, the bluff important burghers 
having their houses heated by quaint porcelain 
stoves, huddling themselves in furs, and wad- 
dling obesely . . . Very pleasant . . . And in 
France, too, in the assommoirs, the tang of wine 
in the air and the blue hue of smoke, excited 
Latin voices. ^^Encore un bock! T*es saoul, 
tnon vieux! Flute! Je suis comme le Pont 
Neuf!^* A raucous voice singing a political skit: 

Cordieu, Madame! Que faites-vous id? 

Cordieu, Madame! Que faites-vous ici? 

Je danse le polka avec tous mes amis! 

Je danse le polka avec tous mes amis! 

Buenos Aires, hell ! 

And the worst was the strange inversion of 


THE VALLEY OF THE BLACK PIG 259 


time. Here winter was, cold streets, steely 
snow, garbage frozen to stone . . . And in 
Europe was sane June. Purple flower of the 
heather in Ulster, and white flower of the bogs, 
and in, the little bays of Antrim, men spearing 
flounders from boats in the long summer even- 
ings. And the bairns hame from school, with a’ 
their wee games, fishing for sticky-backs wi’ pins, 
and the cummers spinning. Eigh, Ulster I And 
in England, they punting on the Thames, among 
the water-lilies. Soft Norman days, and in Ger- 
many the young folks going to the woods . . . 
In Buenos Aires, hell! 

Within the house a cold that the little fire 
could only gallantly fight against. Without, 
cold of wolves. 

“Hedda, you come from a cold country. Tell 
me, is it like this in Sweden, any time?” 

She was sitting in the candle-light, doing the 
needle-work she took such quietness in. Her 
firm white hands moving rhythmically, her body 
steady, her eyes a-dream. It was hard ever to 
think that she was — what she was. It was hard 
for him to think the word now, knowing her. 
She looked up and smiled. 

“No, Shane, not like this. It ’s cold, very cold. 
But very beautiful. By day the countryside is 
quiet, white, ascetic, like some young nun. And 


26 o 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


at night there are lights and jollity. It is like 
a child’s idea of fairy-land. One wishes one were 
further north, where the reindeer are. One is 
not enemy to the cold, as you are here. One 
accepts it. It has dignity. Here it is naked, 
malevolent. That ’s the difference.” 

“Naked, with awful hands ... A cold that 
seizes ...” 

“Yes, Shane.” She took up her work again. 
“Sometimes I think long until I get back to 
Sweden.” 

“You — ^you are going back?” 

“Of course, Shane.” 

“When?” 

“Five, six, seven years, unless I die, or am 
killed. Certainly I shall go back.” 

“Yes, but in five, six — hum!” 

“But what, Shane?” 

“I once knew a woman, Hedda. She was — 
as you are. Just having friends. And she was 
as handsome as you are, too. She did n’t have 
your head, your poise. She liked beauty, as you 
do. But this woman looked forward, as I don’t 
think you do. She saw herself always going 
down. She saw herself in the end like the hel- 
met-maker’s daughter, in some archway of the 
city, seeking a couple of pence . . . And she was 
afraid, horribly afraid ...” 


THE VALLEY OF THE BLACK PIG 261 


“She was a silly woman.” 

“How, Hedda?” 

“She did n’t know two things. That luck 
changes; destiny is sometimes as kind as it is 
cruel. And also, when you are old, the money 
of the archway will bring you as much joy, a 
drink, a bed, a meal for the morrow, as do the 
diamonds of youth. The old don’t need much, 
Shane. They have n’t far to go.” 

“But you, Hedda. Are n’t you afraid of — 
the archway, and the few pence — ” 

“No, Shane. That will not be my way.” The 
broidery dropped to her lap. Her eyes, blue as 
winter, looked away, away. “I shall survive it alb 
barring death of course, and in seven, eight, ten 
years, I shall drop all this and go back, and be a 
lady in the land of my birth, a quiet, soft-voiced 
woman in a little house that has glinting brass in 
winter and flowers around it in summer. And I 
shall be very kind to the poor, Shane . . . And 
all young things that are baffled or hurt can come 
to me, and tell their troubles, and I shall under- 
stand. And oftentimes, sitting in the long 
Northern twilights, I shall think; Is this Froken 
Hagen, who is all the world’s friend, the girl who 
was once despised in Buenos Aires? . . . And I 
shall choke a little, and think: ‘God is good!’ ” 
“You are very sure of yourself, Hedda.” 


262 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


“Yes, Shane. I know my own capabilities. I 
know, too, my own limitations. I know I can 
always be of service. But I know, too, that there 
will be no love ever for me, nor any little children 
of my body, nor any big man to protect me and 
my house ...” 

“This other woman — I killed her to save her 
from the archway — she dreaded so much ...” 

“You were very silly, Shane,” she snipped off 
a thread with the scissors. “People outgrow 
fear, and it may only have been a passing mood, 
that would have gone with the moon or the sea- 
son. You know very little about women, Shane.” 

He laughed bitterly. “I have been married 
twice, and once I loved a woman greatly.” 

“From what you tell me,” her voice was calm, 
“you have never been married. You made a 
mistake as a boy. And once again you bought a 
woman, as you might a fine dog, admired her, as 
you might admire a fine dog, and gave her a little 
passion, which comes and goes, knocks, passes on 
— but no trust. And once you were infatuated 
with a hysterical woman, and it all ended hysteri- 
cally. No, Shane. I don’t think you know 
much about women.” 

“You know so many things.” He was irrita- 
ted. “Perhaps you know what is wrong with 


THE VALLEY OF THE BLACK PIG 263 


“Of course I do, Shane. Anybody would 
know. You are so important to yourself. All 
the world is in relation to you, not you in relation 
to the world. And people are not very impor- 
tant, Shane ... I know ... You look .for 
things. You don’t make them. You want every- 
thing. You give nothing. You have n’t a wife, 
a house. Your father gave poems. But you 
have n’t a house, a child, a wife, a book. You 
only have a trading-ship.” 

“But I trade. I do my share of the world’s 
work.” 

“Any shop-keeper!” 

“I handle my ship.” 

“Any mathematician . . .” 

“I brave all the perils of the sea.” 

“Are you afraid of death?” 

“Of course not.” 

“Well?” 

“Hedda, I handle men.” 

“Any little braggadocio lieutenant . . .” 

His anger rose in hot waves. “So I am not 
worth anything in life, Hedda. How much are 
you?” 

“O, Shane,” she stood up and looked at him 
seriously, “my calling is the oldest in the world, 
they say, but to me it ’s not the least honorable. 
It is sordid or not just as one makes it. I want 


264 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


you to think of men going to sea, and weary of the 
voyage, and from me somehow they get a 
glimpse of home. Are this house and myself 
more evil than the dram-shop and the gambling- 
hell? And are n’t there women in England and 
France who would rather have their menfolk with 
me than leaning on some sodden counter? They 
might hate the choice, but it ’s better . . . 
Shane, if you knew how weary men have talked 
to me of families abroad, their hearts burdened. 
They cannot talk to men . . . and sometimes 
I exorcise devils, Shane, that young girls may 
walk safely in the dark . . . And sometimes a 
man is athirst for a flash of beauty . . . Think, 
Shane — you are not small . . . Even yourself, 
Shane, I have helped you. There were times 
this month when you were close to the river, 
terribly, terribly close ... I said nothing, but 
I knew. And I held you. I willed. I prayed 
even . . . Shane, Shane, amigOy when the time 
came that I had to work I chose this with my 
eyes open.” 

“I ’m sorry,” Campbell lowered his head. “I 
can only say I ’m sorry I said — hinted . . . But 
Hedda, were n’t there other things you could have 
done?” 

“A sempstress, maybe. But I think it ’s more 


THE VALLEY OF THE BLACK PIG 265 


important to ease a man’s mind than to cover his 
back.” 

“But children. You love children, Hedda. 
You know so much. Could n’t you have been a 
governess in some great house?” 

“O Shane, Shane mto, when will you under- 
stand?” Her calm voice had a note of distress 
in it. “None can judge of another’s life. None 
can tell. None direct. What do you know of 
what passed before — I came to a mean house in a 
mean town? I once opened a door I shouldn’t 
have, and left the lighted room . . . for a warm 
blue darkness . . . And I closed the door be- 
hind me . . . And daylight came. I am not of 
a breed that sues for mercy. So I went a- 
head . . . through the world. And I never look 
back, Shane. I am no Lot’s wife, to become a 
pillar of her own salt tears . . 

“But Hedda, you are good. And this life — ” 

“Of course I am good, Shane. There is no 
man can say I did him wrong in mind or body, or 
heart, either. And I am a comfort to many 
. . . All I have done is to outrage a conven- 
tion of property that I don’t believe . . . 
Shane, do you know people cover greed with 
sentimentality and call it virtue?” 

“But, Hedda, the women don’t see. They 
scorn you — ” 


266 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


“Do they? Poor souls. Let them! Amigo 
mioy I have a life. I have to think, gage, act, 
concentrate. And when I want time of my own, 
Shane, I have it. The housewife with her frowsy 
duties, being kissed perfunctorily on the mat, the 
man who wears a stilted mask to the world, and 
before her — lets go . . . Ugh 1 And the mon- 
datne with her boredom . . . the hatred in wide 
houses . . . Oh, I know. Sometimes I think it 's 
so wonderful, being free . . . 

“O Shane, please don’t be absurd, sentimen- 
tal .. . please, I know my way, and find 
yours . . . Tell me, do you know yet what day 
you sail?” 


§8 

A sailor in a jersey and reefer caught his arm 
In the Avenida de Mayo . . . 

“All filled up.” Campbell uttered brusquely. 

“It was no’ that.” 

Campbell put his hand in his pocket looking for 
a coin. 

“You ’ll be forgetting the Antrim glens, Shane 
Campbell.” Shane flushed. The coin in his 
fingers burned him. 


THE VALLEY OF THE BLACK PIG 267 


“How did I know you were fro’ the Antrim 
glens?” 

“You Ve seen me a few times, though you ’d 
hardly know me. Simon Fraser of Ballycastle. 
You would no’ recognize me, if you knew me, on 
account of my hair being white. I was lost on 
the coast of Borneo for four years. When I 
was lost my hair was black — maybe a wee sprinkle 
o’ gray — but what you might call black; and when 
I was picked up, and saw myself in a looking- 
glass, it was white. They did no’ know me when 
I got back to Ballycastle.” 

“Would you care for a drink, Simon?” 

“I don’t care much either way, Shane Camp- 
bell. And if I wanted a drink bad, I always have 
the silver for ’t. I would no’ have you think I 
stopped you for to cadge a drink. I ’m no’ that 
kind of man. But I was wi’ your uncle Alan 
when he died. Or to be exact, I saw him just 
before he died. I was visiting in Cushendun. I 
have a half-brither there you might know, 
Tamas McNeil, Red Tam they ca’ him. And 
whiles I was there, I saw Alan Donn go 
down.” 

“My uncle Alan dead! Why, man, you’re 
crazy — ” 

“Your uncle Alan ’s a dead man.” 

“You ’re mistaken, man. It ’s some one else.” 


268 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


“Your uncle Alan ’s a dead man. And what ’s 
more : I have a word from him for ye.” 

“But I ’d have heard.” 

“I cam’ out in steam. It went against the 
grain a bit, but I cam’ out in steam. From Bel- 
fast . . . With a new boat out of Queen’s Is- 
land . . . Alan Bonn ’s a dead man. That ’s 
why I stopped you. For to tell you your uncle 
Alan ’s gone . . 

“Come in, here,” Shane said dazedly. He 
pulled the man into a bar, and sat down in a 
snug. “Tell me.” 

“It was about nine in the morning, and an aw- 
ful gray day it was, wi’ a heavy sea running and 
a nor’easter, and this schooner was getting the 
timbers pounded out o’ her. Her upper gear was 
gone entirely, and we could no’ see how she was 
below, on account of the high seaway. She was 
a Frenchman, or a Portuguese. And she was 
gone. And we were all on shore, wondering 
why she had no’ put into Greenock or Stranraer, 
or what kind of sailors they were at all, at all. 

“Up comes your uncle Alan; and he says: 
‘Has anybody put out to give those poor bastards 
a hand?’ says he. 

“ ‘There ’s no chance, Alan Bonn,’ says we. 

“And he says: ‘How the hell do you know?’ 
says he. 


THE VALLEY OF THE BLACK PIG 269 


“And we say: ‘Can’t you see for youself, 
Alan Bonn, wi’ the sea that ’s in it, and the wind 
that ’s in it, and the currents, there ’s no chance 
to help them?’ 

“ ‘So you ’re not going,’ says he. 

“ ‘Och, Alan Bonn, have sense,’ says we. 

“ ‘If you are n’t, then by Jesus, I am.’ 

“He turns to one of the men there, a fisherman 
by the name of Rafferty, and he says: ‘Hughie, 
get ready that wee boat o’ yours, wi’ the spitfire 
foresail, and the wee trisail.’ 

“Then we said: ‘You’re not going, Alan 
Bonn.’ 

“ ‘ Who ’s to stop me?’ says he. All this time 
we had to shout on account of the great wind 
was in it. 

“ ‘We think too much of you, Alan Bonn, to let 
you go.’ 

“ ‘If one o’ you stinking badgers lays a finger 
on me to stop me, I ’ll break his God-damned 
neck.’ 

“Says Hughie Rafferty to us — you know 
Hughie Rafferty, a silent man, a wise man — says 
he: ‘He ’ll get out fifty yards, a hundred yards 
from shore and be stuck. And he’ll say: 
“Well, I ’ve done my best. Good-by and to hell 
with ye, and die like men I” And he ’ll come back. 
And if the boat turns over,’ says Hughie Rafferty, 


270 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


‘he can swim like a rat, and he ’ll be back among 
us cursing, like his ain kind sel’, within a wheen 
o’ minutes.’ 

“Says Hughie Rafferty, says he: ‘I ’ll go wi’ 
your Honor’s Lordship, Alan Bonn.’ 

“ ‘You will like hell,’ says Alan Bonn. ‘You ’ll 
stay here wi’ your childer and the mother o’ your 
childer.’ 

“Then a wee old man, that was a piper, speaks 
up. He was bent in two over an ash plant was 
in his right hand, and his left hand held his 
back. 

“ ‘It ’s a foolish thing you are doing, Alan 
Bonn,’ says he. ‘How can you bring off the poor 
people?’ 

“ ‘I don’t want to bring off the poor people, 
Shamus-a-Feeba, James of the Pipes. But 
there ’s not a rock, a wind, a current, a wave it- 
self of Struth na-Maoile that I don’t know. I ’m 
figuring on rigging up some kind of sea-anchor,’ 
says Alan Bonn, says he, ‘and getting the ignorant 
foreigners to chop their gear overboard, and rid- 
ing the storm out. Bon t worry yourself, Sha- 
mus-a-Feeba.’ 

“That was the way of your uncle, Alan Bonn 
Campbell. He was very rough with the strong, 
but he was ay considerate of the old and over- 
young. He’d be rough with the king of Eng- 


THE VALLEY OF THE BLACK PIG 271 


land but he ’d be awfu’ polite to an ould man.” 

“God, is Alan Bonn dead?” Shane was near 
tears. “Do people like Alan Bonn die?” 

“Aye, they die, too,” said Simon Fraser. “And 
rogues live. It ’s queer. 

“The boat was a’ready to be put into the sea, 
when your uncle sees mysel’ on the edge o’ the 
gathering. He comes straight to me. You mind 
how Alan Bonn used to go through a crowd. 

“ ‘Are you the sailing man,’ says he, ‘wha ’s a 
half-brither to Red Tam McNeil of the Ten- 
Acre?”’ 

“ ‘I am, sir, Alan Bonn.’ 

“ ‘Is it go wi’ ye in the boat?’ says 1. ‘I ’ll go.’ 

“ ‘No, no,’ quo’ he. ‘It ’s no’ that. So’thin’ 
different. You ken my brither’s son, Shane Oge 
Campbell, wha ’s a master on the seas?’ 

“ ‘I ’ve met him once or twice, and I ’ve heard 
tell.’ 

“ ‘B you see him, gi’e him a message. I ’m 
sure you ’ll see him. I ’m sure,’ says Alan Bonn, 
‘this morn I ’m fey.’ 

“ ‘Tell him,’ says Alan Bonn, and he puts his 
hand on my shoulder. ‘Tell him this : I ’ve been 
intending to write him this long time. 
There ’s a thought in my head,’ says he, ‘that all ’s 
not well with him. 

“ ‘Tell him this: I Ve been thinking and I Ve 


272 


THE IVIND BLOWETH 


thought : There ’s great virtue to the place 
you’re born in. Tell him he ought no’ stay so 
long frae the braes o’ Ulster. Tell him : The 
sea ’s not good for the head. A man ’s alone wi’ 
himself too long, wi’ his ain heid. Tell him 
that ’s not good. 

“ ‘Tell him,’ says he, ‘there ’s great virtue and 
grand soothin’ to the yellow whins and the purple 
heather. That ’s a deep fey thing. Tell him to 
try.’ 

“ ‘Is that all, sir, Alan Bonn,’ says I? 

“ ‘You might tell him,’ says he, ‘aye, you might 
tell him : “ ‘Your uncle Alan was not a coward, 

and he was a wise man.” ’ 

“At that I was puzzled — I tell you without, 
offense meant — it sounded like boasting. And it 
was no’ like Alan Bonn to boast. 

“ ‘Can I come along wi’ you, sir, Alan Bonn?’ 
says I. 

“With that he gies me a look would knock 
you down. ‘Bid na I tell you to do so’thin’ for 
me?’ says he. 

“Then I kent he was na coming back. 

“ ‘Aye, aye, sir,’ said I. 

“He goes to the boat on the edge of the 
water. You could hardly keep your footing with 
the wind, nor hear your neighbor with the sea. 
And Alan Bonn laughs : ‘By Christ, ’t is myself 


THE VALLEY OF THE BLACK PIG 273 


that must be fond o’ boating,’ says he. ‘And 
to-day is the grand day for it, surely. Hi horo, 
push her off,’ says he. ^Horo eile! Horo, heroes, 
horo eileP We pushed with the water up to our 
waists. The keel ground. The sand sucked. 
We pushed with the water up to our shoulders. 
Then the trisail caught the wind. And Alan 
Donn was off. 

“And Hughie Rafferty was wrong: Not at 
fifty, not at a hundred did he turn. Not at half 
a mile. He must have had the arms of Finn 
McCool, Alan Donn, and the hands of a woman. 
He ’d take the high waves like a hunter taking 
a wall. Then you could nearly feel him easing 
her to the pitch. Apart from the waves them- 
selves you could see the wee fountain of water 
when the bows slapped. Then he ’d come up 
again. The trisail would belly and again he ’d 
dive. 

“And then he came to the ninth wave — tonn a' 
bhaidhte, the drowning wave. Even away off 
you could see it rise like a wall, and curl at the 
top. We were watching. There was the crippled 
schooner, and Alan Donn, and the great sea. 
And the wave curled and broke. And then was 
only the schooner and the great sea . . . 

“And we waited for a minute, although we 
knew there was no call. 


274 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


“And after a while an ould one falls to her 
knees and raises the keening cry: 

“ ^Mavrone! my sorrow ! Mavrone dhu! 
my black sorrow! Mo chead vrone dhu! my 
hundred black sorrows. 

“ ‘Is it gone you are, Alan Bonn? Is it gone 
you are in the cruel sea? My black curse on it. 
It is between you and the people of your heart, 
between you and the land of your desire. Och, 
sea, is n’t it cruel you are? Ruined Ireland is this 
day. The star of Ulster is out. And the little 
moon of Antrim shines no more. Och, a *airrgeL 
My sorrow, O sea I 

“ ‘Who will be good to us, now, Alan Bonn? 
You were good to the poor. God's gain and our 
loss. Who will make the young maids flush, and 
the young men throw back their shoulders, from 
pride at your having talked to them? Avourneen 
dherelish, mur nAlan Donn, our Alan I Who will 
make the men of the South stand back, and you 
not striding through a gathering, ever, any more? 
And the dealing men of Scotland will miss you, 
.you they could never get the better of in any fair, 
night noon or morning. Peader agas Pol, Muire. 
Padraig agas Brighid! Peter and Paul, Mary, 
Patrick and St. Bride, let you be coming quickly 
now, and take up Alan Bonn Campbell from the 
cold sea 1 


THE VALLEY OF THE BLACK PIG 275 


“ ‘Your horse in the stable will miss you, Alan 
Donn. Poor beastie, he ’ll miss you sore. Your 
servant boys will miss you, they that would jump 
if you but dropped your pipe. The green fair- 
ways of Portrush will miss you when spring 
comes, and you not hitting the ball against the 
champions of the world. The lambs will miss 
you, wee lambs of the fields, and the colts. 
They ’ll be missing you, but ’t will be nothing to 
our missing you. This night your dogs will be 
crying, and we ’ll be crying too. 

“ ‘Young woman look back of you, and see if 
the nine glens of Antrim are there. I would n’t 
be surprised if they were gone, now Alan Bonn’s 
in the bitter sea.’ 

“Then up comes this woman, and she had a 
great cloak on — ” 

“What woman, Simon Fraser?” 

“The woman there was talk of Alan Donn 
marrying. The woman from over the sea.” 

“ ‘Has anybody seen Mr. Campbell?’ And 
we don’t understand. 

“It ’s Alan Donn she means,’ says Hughie Raf- 
ferty. 

“Then the ould one on her knees takes up 
her keening. And this woman understands. 
Her face goes white. She sees the schooner be- 
ing battered by the Moyle. 


276 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


“ ‘Did he go out to that?’ she asks. 

“ ‘Yes, ma’am, your Ladyship’s Honor.’ 

“ ‘He didn’t get there?’ 

“ ‘The drowning wave caught Alan Donn,’ says 
Hughie Rafferty. 

“For a moment you ’d think she had n’t heard. 
Then — a strange thing — a wee smile came on her 
face, and suddenly it changed to a queer twist, 
all over the face of her. Then she stood up 
proudly and looked out to sea . . . and two 
tears came to the eyes of her and she raised her 
head higher still . . . The tears came in spite 
of her . . . and suddenly she gave a wee gulp 
like a person who ’s sick . . . And she turned and 
began to stumble away in the sand ... A couple 
of the young ones went as if to help her, but she 
turned. 

“ ‘Please,’ was all she said. And she went off 
on her lee lone. 

“And then says Hughie Rafferty: ‘The tide 
will bring him to CushendalL’ 

“And at Cushendall next day we found the 
corp. There was n’t a mark on him. Even the 
things of the deep water had respect for Alan 
Boon.” 

“What was this woman like, Simon Fraser? 
This woman there was talk of Alan Donn 
marrying?” 


THE VALLEY OF THE BLACK PIG 277 


“This woman was not a woman of Alan 
Bonn’s age. An’ she was not a young woman. 
Her face was showing not the face of a girl but 
the face of herself. She had a proud face and 
a brave face. This woman would be around 
twenty-five. 

“She was a brown woman: she had brown eyes 
and brown hair. She was not an Irishwoman. 
She was an Englishwoman. She had no Gaelic. 
And her English was not our English. This 
woman could ride a horse, though not too well. 
She would put a horse at a jump, though she was 
afeared of it. 

“This woman had money. She was a niece of 
the admiral’s, and she was on a long visit to the 
admiral’s house. 

“I ’ve heard tell a queer thing about this 
woman. She would play at the piano for hours 
on a stretch, readings from a book. For hours 
she would play, all by herself. The people pass- 
ing the road and the servant girls of the house 
could n’t make head or tail of her music. But 
our folk ken nothing of the piano. The pipes, 
the melodeon, the fiddle, they know that — and 
a few ould ones have heard the harp. They 
could n’t tell whether it was good music or bad 
music was in it. 

“There ’s another queer thing about this 


278 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


woman. When she walked you ’d think she was 
dancing. Not our reels or hornpipes, but queer 
ould dances you ’d be walking to, not stepping. 
She had wee feet, though she was not a small 
woman. 

“Your uncle Alan’s dogs took to this woman, 
and you ken how Alan’s terriers had little liking 
for any but his ain sel’. I was told also to tell 
you that she had the dogs, and that they were 
comfortable, and would be well looked after. 
So that you need not be worritin’ about your 
uncle Alan’s dogs . . . 

“I ’m afeared I ’ve given you a poor picture of 
this woman, Shane Campbell: but it’s a queer 
thing, you ’d feel this woman more nor you ’d 
see her. In a great deal of people, you would n’t 
note her at all. But were you coming along the 
road, and a fey feeling come over you, and you 
say; Around the next corner is something kindly, 
something brave, something fine; as you turned 
the corner you ’d meet this woman. 

“Your uncle Alan liked this woman, liked her 
fine, but this woman was sick with love for your 
uncle Alan. 

“You ’ll blame me sore, Shane Campbell, and 
rightly too; it was very careless of me, me who ’s 
got a careful name — ;it did n’t seem to matter, 


THE VALLEY OF THE BLACK PIG 279 


though! The name of this woman is not at 
me . . . 

All the tears in Shane’s eyes, all the emptiness 
in his heart was gone now. A sudden elation 
seized him. He understood. Alan Donn had 
done a fine brave thing; Alan Donn had done 
the strong thing, the right thing, as Alan always 
did. 

He thought: Alan was in love with this 
woman and this woman with Alan, and Alan had 
looked ahead sanely, seen, decided. Thirty years 
difference of age. Dignified strong wisdom and 
beautiful brave youth, one firm as a great firm 
rock, the other with the light wings of birds; 
spiritually never could they mate. Youth spirit- 
ual is like a gosling of yellow down, age spiritual 
is an eagle of great wings ... If the spirit has 
not died . . . Alan would never be an irritated, 
jealous, paretic old man, nor would he see “this 
woman” grow stern with repression and ache, and 
loneliness of heart and spirit . . . 

Ah, he had done it well I A line of Froissart’s 
came to Shane: “They were very noble; they 
cared nothing for their lives!” He had given 
her no shattered marriage, no empty explanation 
that breeds only bitterness and perhaps contempt. 
He had given her a very gallant memory that 


28 o 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


would exalt her in the coming days . . . The 
world, the flesh, and the devil had played at cards 
with Alan Donn, and Alan had won . . . 

He thought: Were it I now, I should have 
drifted into this, and come to ancient tortured 
days, and not having strength maybe, should 
have ended, not before as Alan Donn did, gal- 
lantly, but afterward, meanly, leaving bitterness 
and desolation . . . Ah, wise Alan. 

And it occurred to him suddenly, wise Alan, 
fey on the threshold of death, remembering him : 
There is virtue in the yellow gorse of Ulster, in 
the purple Ulster heather. Come back to where 
you were born, and rest, and get strength . . . 
This is a deep thing . . . Alan knew some- 
thing . . . The rain and the mist and the wind 
among the rushes had taught him natural se- 
crets . . . Maybe from the ground man drew 
strength, and maybe strange ground was alien to 
other than its own ... a motherland — why did 
they call a place a motherland . . .? Antaeus, 
the Libyan wrestler, was invincible so long as his 
feet were on mother earth, and Heracles had 
lifted him into the air and the air had crushed 
him . . . What did the Greek parable mean . . . ? 
It meant something ... the purple hills . . . 
the purple heather . . . The Moyle purple in 
the setting sun . . . 


THE VALLEY OF THE BLACK PIG 281 


“I ’ll go back,” he decided. Scots supersti- 
tion welled up in him. “A man seeing death 
sees more than death. Sees life. The Keepers 
of the Door maybe anoint his eyes, and if he looks 
back for an instant, God knows what he sees . . . 
I ’ll go.” 

“Can I give you a lift back to Ballycastle, 
Simon Fraser? Or a lift anywhere you want. 
It ’s the least I can do and you coming this long 
way to tell me news.” 

“I ’m very thankful to you, Shane Campbell, 
very thankful indeed. It ’s just the way of you 
to ask a poor sailor man does he want a lift half- 
way across the world. But I ’ll never again see 
Ballycastle with living eyes.” 

“And why not, man Simon?” 

“It ’s this way, Shane Campbell. It ’s this 
way. When I came back after six years — four 
years lost on the coast of Borneo — my three fine 
sons were gone — twenty and nineteen and seven- 
teen they were. Gone they were following the 
trade of the sea. And herself the woman of the 
house was gone, too. I did n’t mind the childer, 
for ’t is the way of the young to be roving. But 
herself went off with another man. A great gift 
of making a home she had, so there was many 
would have her, in spite of her forty year. Into 
the dim City of Glasgow she went, and there was 


282 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


no word of her. And she might have waited, 
Shane Campbell; she might so. Four years lost 
on the coast of Borneo to come and find your 
childer scattered, and your wife putting shame on 
you. That ’s a hard thing.’’ 

“You ’re a young man, Simon Fraser. You ’re 
as young as I am, forty-two. There ’s a quarter- 
century ahead of you. Put the past by and begin 
again. There ’d be love at many a young 
woman for you. And a house, and new bairns.” 

“I ’m a back-thinking man, Alan’s kinsman, a 
long back-thinking man. And I ’d always be put- 
ting the new beside the old and the new would not 
seem good to me. The new bairns would never 
be like the old bairns, and it would na be fair. 
And as for women, I ’ve had my bellyful of 
women after her I was kind to, and was true to 
for one and twenty years, going off with some 
sweating landsman to a dingy town ... I was 
ay a good sailor, Shane Oge . . . 

“It ’s by now, nearly by ... So I ’ll be going 
up and down the sea on the chance of meeting 
one of my new braw bairns. And maybe I ’ll 
come across one of them on the water-front, and 
him needing me most . . . And maybe I ’ll sign 
articles wi’ the one aboard the same ship, and it ’s 
the grand cracks we ’ll have in the horse lati- 
tudes ... Or maybe I ’ll find one of them a 


THE VALLEY OF THE BLACK PIG 283 


young buck officer aboard a ship I’m on; and 
he ’ll come for’a’d and say : ‘Lay aloft, old-timer, 
with the rest and be pretty God-damned quick 
about it.’ And I ’ll say: ‘Aye, aye, sir.’ And 
thinks: Wait till you get ashore, and I’ll tell 
you who I am, and give you a tip about your sea- 
manship, too, my grand young fello’ . . . Life 
has queerer things nor that, Shane Oge, as maybe 
you know . . . The only thing that bothers me 
is that I ’ll never see Ballycastle any more.” 

“Is there nothing I can do for you, Simon 
Fraser?” 

“There ’s a wee thing, Shane Campbell; just a 
wee thing?” 

“What is it, man Simon?” 

“Maybe you ’d think me crazy — ” 

“Of course not, Simon.” 

“Well then, when you ’re home, and looking 
around you at the whins and purple heather, and 
the wee gray towns, maybe you’ll say: ‘Glens 
of Antrim, I ken a man of Antrim, and he ’ll 
never see you again, but he ’ll never forget you.’ 
Will you do that?” 

“I ’ll do that.” 

“Maybe you ’ll be looking at Ballycastle, the 
town where I was born in.” 

“Yes, Simon.” 

“You don’t have to say it out loud. You can 


284 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


stop and say it low in yourself, so as nobody ’ll 
hear you, barring the gray stones of the town. 
Just remember: ‘Ballycastle, Simon Fraser’s 
thinking long . . ” 


§ 9 

A cold southerly drove northward from the 
pole, chopping the muddy waves of the river. 
Around the floating camolotes, islands of weeds, 
were little swirls. The poplars and willows of 
the banks grew more distant, as Maid of the Isles 
cut eastward under all sail. As he tramped fore 
and aft, Buenos Aires dropped, dropped, dropped 
behind her counter, dropped . . . became a 
blur . . . 

Maid of the Isles was only going home, as she 
had gone home a hundred times before, from 
different ports, as she had gone home a dozen 
times from this one. But never before had it 
seemed significant to Shane . . . Back, back 
the city faded ... If the wind lasted, and 
Shane thought it would last, by to-morrow they 
would have left the Plate and be in the open sea. 
Back, back the city dropped ... It couldn’t 
drop too fast ... It was like a prison from 


THE VALLEY OF THE BLACK PIG 285 


which he was escaping, fleeing ... A great 
yearning come on him to have it out of sight 
. . . definitely, forever. Once it was gone, 
he would know for a certain thing, he was 
free . . . 

He was surprised to be free. As surprised 
as an all but beaten wrestler is when his oppo- 
nent’s lock weakens unexpectedly, and dazedly he 
knows he can get up again and spar. A fog had 
lifted suddenly, as at sea. And he had thought 
the mist of the Valley of the Black Pig could never 
lift, would remain, dank and cold and hollow, 
covering all things like a cerecloth, binding all as 
chains bind . . . and that he must remain with 
the weeping population, until the Boar without 
Bristles came . . . forever and forever and for- 
ever . . . 

But the nearest and dearest had died gallantly, 
and somehow the fog had lifted. And then he 
was dazed and weak, but free. Where was he 
going? What to do? He didn’t know, but 
hope, life itself had come again, like a long 
awaited moon. 

Buenos Aires faded . . . Faded the Valley of 
the Black Pig . . . Buenos Aires its symbol 
. . . Buenos Aires with bleak squares, its hovels, 
its painted trees — timbo and tipa and palo bar- 
racho . . . 


286 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


He stood aft of the steersman, and suddenly 
raised his head. 

Mo mhallacht go deo leat, a bhaile nan gcrann! 

'S mo shlan do gach baile raibh me riamh ann. 

“My curse forever on you, O town of the 
trees,” an old song came to him, “and my fare- 
well to every town I was ever in — ” 

A great nostalgia for Ulster, for the whins 
and heather, choked him: 

iomaidh bealach fliuch salach agas hoithrin 
cam — 

“There ’s many a wet muddy highways and 
crooked half-road, eader mise, between me, eader 
mise, eader mise — ** He had forgotten. 

“Between me and the townland that my desire 
is in,” the Oran steersman prompted. *^Eader 
mtse agas an haile bhfuil mo dhuil annT* 

“Mind your bloody wheel,” Shane warned. 
“This is a ship, not a poetry society. Look at the 
way you Ve letting her come up, you Highland 
bastard. Keep her off- — and lam her!” ‘ 

“Lam her it is, sir,” the steersman grin- 
ned . , . 


PART SIX 


THE BOLD FENIAN MEN 



THE BOLD FENIAN MEN 


§ I 


HE worst of it all, Campbell smiled, was 



1 this: that life was so immensely healthy 
now, immensely peaceful, immensely sane. Here 
he was in the house of his fathers, built from the 
angle of a turret of King John’s time. Here he 
was by the purple hills, by the purple Moyle. 
Five springs had come since he had given up the 
sea. Five times he had seen the little moun- 
tain streams swell with the import of the 
season, hurrying from the summit of the 
eagles, carrying water on nature’s business. 
Five times had the primrose come, and 
the cuckoo. The faint delicate blue of early 
grass turned to green. The heat haze of sum- 
mer on the silent glens. The Moyle thick with 
fish. Then autumn, a deep-bosomed grave woman 
moving through the reddening woods, the turf- 
cutters with their spades, the pillars of blue smoke 
from the cottages in the stilly September sky. 
And the three great moons of autumn, silver as 


289 


290 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


sixpence. Five times the distant trumpeting of 
the wild swans and winter came, in great galloping 
winds, and sweeping sheets of sea-rain. And 
Moyle tossed like a giant troubled in his sleep. 
And on the mountain-sides the rowan stood up like 
a proud enemy, and the ash bent humbly, and the 
dwarf oak crouched under fury. And the wind 
whistled in the frozen reeds. And with the snow 
came out the hunted ones unafraid, the red fox, 
and the badger of dark ways, and the cantering 
hare. 

Without, the wind might roar like cannon, and 
the sea rise in great engulfing waves. Within 
the old house with its corner dating from King 
John’s time — so long ago! — ^was comfort. Here 
was the library where Robin More — God rest 
his soul ! — had puzzled over the round towers of 
Ireland and written his monograph on the 
Phenician colony of the County Down, and 
bothered about strange quaint old things, com- 
paring the Celtic cross to the sistrum of Egypt, 
and wondering whether the round towers of Ire- 
land had aught to do with worship of the sun, and 
writing of Gaelic occultism to Bulwer Lytton, 
and dreaming of the friend of his youth, Goethe, 
in the dusk. And down in the gun-room were the 
cups of Alan Donn, cups for sailing and cups for 
golf, and ribbons that horses won. And in the 


THE BOLD FENIAN MEN 


291 


drawing-room was the needlework of his mother, 
the precise beautiful broidery . . . so like her- 
self, minute, mathematical, not significant . . . 
And in the kitchen was the red turf, and the 
flitches of bacon in the eaves, and the thick servant 
girls hustling impatiently, and the servant boys in 
their corduroy trousers bound with rushes at the 
knee . . . their heavy brogues, their honest jests 
of Rabelais , . . and in the fold the silent sheep, 
and great solemn cows warm in their manger . . . 

Five years, going on six now, since he had left 
the sea, and invested his fortune in a Belfast 
shipyard, and taken over the homestead of Clan 
Campbell to run as it had always been run, wisely, 
sanely, healthily . . . There were the servant 
boys and girls, with a comfortable roof above 
them. There were the cotter tenants, satisfied, 
certain of justice. At the shows his shorthorns 
took ribbons. For local charities, his duty was 
done . . . But there was something, something 
lacking . . . 

It was n’t peace. Peace he had in plenty. 
The spring of the heather, the tang of the sea 
brought peace. The bats of twilight, and the 
sallow branches, and the trout leaping in the 
river at the close of day. And the twilight it- 
self, like some shy girl . . . Out of all these 
came an emanation, a cradle-song, that lulled 


292 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


like the song of little waves . . . And as for 
pleasure, there was pleasure in listening to the 
birds among the trees, to seeing the stooking of 
barley, to watching the blue banner of the flax, to 
walking on frosty roads on great nights of stars 
. . . To riding with the hunt, clumsily, as a sailor 
does, but getting in at the death, as pleased as 
the huntsman, or the master himself . . . To the 
whir of the reel as the great blue salmon rushed 
. . . Pleasure, and peace, and yet not satis- 
faction. 

He thought, for a while, that what he missed 
was the ships, and that, subconciously, there was 
some nostalgia for the sea on him. He had 
gone to Belfast thinking that with live timbers 
beneath his feet, the — the vacuum within 
him would be filled, but the thought of a ship 
somehow, when he was there, failed to exalt him. 
He loved them always, the long live ships, the 
canvas white as a gull, the delicacy of spars — 
all the beautiful economy . . . But to command 
one again, to go about the world, aimlessly but 
for the bartering of cargo, and to return at the 
voyage’s end, with a sum of money — ^no ! no ! not 
enough I 

And so he came back to the peace and pleasure 
of the glens, the purple heather, and the red 
berries, the chink of pebbles on the strand. To 


THE BOLD FENIAN MEN 


293 


the hunts on frosty mornings, to the salmon- 
fishing, to the showing of cattle. To peace: to 
pleasure . . . 

And he suddenly asked himself what had he 
done to deserve this peace, these pleasant days? 
What right had he to them? What had he given 
to life, what achieved for the world, that he 
should have sanctuary? 

The answer put him in a shiver of panic. 
Nothing! 

He had no right, no title to it. Here he was 
drawing on to fifty, close on forty-eight; and he 
had done, achieved, nothing. He had no wife, 
no child; had achieved no valorous unselfish deed. 
Had not — not even — not even a little song. 


§ 2 

Strange thing — it had n’t occurred to him at 
first; but it did now when he thought over it in 
the winter evenings — was this: that Alan Donn 
Campbell, for all that he was dead these six years 
and more, existed still, was bigger now than he 
had ever been in life . . . 

Because Shane had hated to see the fine boat 
drawn up, he had put Righ nam Bradan, the SaU 


294 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


mon King, Alan Bonn’s great thirty-footer, into 
commission, and raced her at Ballycastle and 
Kingstown, losing both times. He had ascribed it 
to sailing luck, the dying of a breeze, the setting of 
a tide, a lucky tack of an opposing boat. But at 
Cowes he should have won. Everything was 
with him.. He came in fifth. 

“I can’t understand,” he told one of Alan’s 
old crew. 

“Man,” the Antrim sailor told him bluntly, 
“ye have na’ the gift.” 

“But, Feardoracha, I ’m a sailor.” 

“Aye, Shane Campbell, you ’re that. For five 
times seven years you ’ve sailed the seven seas. 
But for racing ye have na’ the gift. Alan Bonn 
had it. And ’t was Alan Bonn had the gift for 
the golf, and the gift for the horses. Just the 
gift. You must not blame yourself, Shane na 
fairrge, there ’s few Alan Bonns.” 

And thinking to himself in the lamp-lit room, 
Shane found what the old man meant. Beneath 
the bronzed face, the roaring manner of Alan 
Bonn, there was a secret of alchemy. Rhythm, 
and concentration like white fire. To the most 
acute tick of the stars he could get a boat over 
the line with the gun. Something told him 
where breezes were. By will-power he forced 


THE BOLD FENIAN MEN 


295 


out the knowledge of a better tack. As to 
horses, where was his equal at putting one over 
a jump? At the exact hair’s-breadth of time, he 
had changed from human being to spirit. It 
was no longer Alan Donn and his horse when he 
dropped his hands on the neck. There was 
fusion. A centaur sprang . . . On the links 
he remembered him, the smiling mask, the stance, 
the waggle, the white ball. The face set, the 
eyes gleamed . . . The terrific explosion . . . 
Not a man and a stick and a piece of gutta- 
percha, but the mind and will performing a 
miracle with matter . . . And Alan Donn was 
dead six years . . . and yet he lived . . . 

He lived because he had been of great use. 
He was a standard, a great ideal. Children who 
had seen him would remember him forever, and 
seek to emulate the fire and strength of him, 
having him to measure by as the mariner has the 
star ... In foreign countries they would tell 
tales of him: There was once a great sportsman 
in the North of Ireland, Alan Donn Campbell 
by name . . . 

His father, too, who had been dead so long — 
mortality had not conquered him. Once in 
Ballycastle Shane had seen a shawled girl look 
out to sea with great staring eyes and a wry 


296 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


mouth, and, half whispered, staccato, not quite 
sung, her fingers twisting her shawl, came a song 
from her white mouth : 

Tiocfaidh an samhradh agas fasfaidh an fear; 

A gas tiocfaidh an duilleabhar glas do bharr nan gcraobh, 
Tiocfaidh mo chead gradhle banaghadh an lae, 

Agas bvailfidh se port ciuin le cumhaidh 'mo dhiaidh. 

The summer will come, and the little grass will grow; 
And there will come a green thickness to the tops of the 
trees. 

And my hundred loves will arise with the dawning of 
the day, 

And he will strike a soft tune out of loneliness after me. 

A queer stitch came in Shane’s heart — a song 
his father made ! And following the stitch came 
a surge of pride. Those songs of his father! 
The light minor he had heard, and the others — 
the surge oi An Oig-hhean Ruaddh, the Pretty 
Red Maiden: 

do bheatha is an tir seo ... A welcome 
before you into this country, O sea-gull more 
lovely than the queen, than the woman of the 
West, whom Naesi, son of Usnach, held in the 
harbor. I could destroy all Ireland, as far as 
the Southern sea, but in the end I would be 
destroyed myself, when my eyes would alight 
on the white swan with the golden crown . . . 


THE BOLD FENIAN MEN 


297 


Or the despairing cry of his poem Ig Cathair 
nan g Ceo: “In the City of the Fogs” — he meant 
London — 

athair nan gras tahhair spas o^n eag domh 
— O Father of the Graces, give me a little re- 
spite from death. Let the ax not yet strike my 
forehead, the way a goat or a pig or a sheep 
is slain, until I make my humility and my last re- 
pentance.” 

Shane wished to God he had known his father, 
that the man had been spared a little until he 
could have loved him . . . He had the only 
picture of him left . . . Great throat and pale, 
liquor-harried face, burning eyes, and black toss- 
ing hair . . . The bald-headed bankers might 
shake their heads and say : He was no good . . . 
he was a rake ... he drank . . . his relations 
with women were not reputable . . . And old 
maids purse their thin-blooded lips . . . But 
when the little money of the bankers was scat- 
tered through the world, and even their little 
chapels had forgotten them, and the stiff bones 
of old maids were crumbling into an unnecessary 
dust, his father’s songs would be sung in Ireland, 
in Man, in the Scottish Highlands, in the bat- 
tered Hebrides. So long as sweet Gaelic was 
spoken and men’s hearts surged with feeling, 
there would be a song of his father’s to translate 


298 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


the effervescence into words of cadenced beauty 
. . . He had an irreverent vision of God smiling 
and talking comfortably to his father while the 
bald-headed bankers cooled their fat heels and 
glared at one another outside the picket-gates of 
heaven . . . The world had gained some- 
thing with the last Gaelic bard . . . 

And he had found out, too, that his other 
uncle, ’Robin More, had a great importance in a 
certain circle. In Dublin he met an old pro- 
fessor, a Jesuit priest, who seemed intensely ex- 
cited that a nephew of Robin More Campbell’s 
should be present. 

“Do you know, by any chance, what your uncle 
was working on when he died?” 

“I ’m afraid I do not, sir.” 

“You know his manuscripts.” 

“Just casually, sentimentally.” 

“You don’t know much about your uncle’s 
work, then?” 

“Not very much.” 

“Did you know,” the old priest said — and his 
urbanity disappeared; there was pique in his 
tones — “that your uncle was the man who defin- 
itely decided for us that the Highlanders of Scot- 
land migrated from Ireland to Scotland? Did 
you know that?” 

“No, sir, I did not.” 


THE BOLD FENIAN MEN 


299 


“I don’t suppose,” the old man was sarcastic, 
“that seems important to you.” 

“To confess. Dr. Hegan, it does not. Is it?” 

“My child,” the old priest smiled — it was so 
queer to be called “my child” at forty-seven — 
“all knowledge is important. All details of 
knowledge. We come we know not whence, and 
we go we hope we know whither. Our history, 
our motives, our all, is vague. All we have is 
faith, a great broad river, but knowledge is the 
little piers . . .” 

They had all been significant: Alan Donn, 
his father, even Uncle Robin, whom he had 
thought only a bookworm in the fading sunshine. 
The world was better, more mature, for their 
having lived . . . 

And he had nothing. Here he was, drawing 
on to fifty, close on forty-eight. And he had 
done, achieved nothing. He had no wife, no 
child; had achieved no valorous unselfish deed. 
Had not — not even — not even a little song . . . 


§ 3 


And then he said to himself : “I am too sensi- 
tive. I have always been too sensitive. The 
stature of my family has dwarfed me in my own 


300 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


esteem. Have n’t I got as much right as others 
to the quiet of the glens?” And again he said: 
“I sit here and I think. And my thought grows 
into a maze. And I wander in it, as a man 
might wander through some old gardener’s fancy, 
having stumbled on it inadvertently, and now 
being in it, now knowing the secret of exit.” 
But a maze was nonexistent, did a person regard 
it so, and if one were to walk on nonchalantly a 
little turn would come, and he find himself in the 
wide sunshine and smiling flowers. And he said: 
“Damn the subtleties! A person is born, lives, 
dies. And what he does is a matter for himself 
alone.” But some inner antagonist said: “You 
are wrong.” 

And he said: “Look at the people around 
me. What more right have they than I to this 
quiet Ulster dusk?” And the antagonist smiled: 
“Well, look.” 

First were the farmers and the fisherfolk. 
Well, they did n’t count. They were natural 
to the soil, as grass was. They grew there, as 
the white bog flower grew. An institution of 
God, like rain. And then there were the summer 
visitors, honest folk from the cities. Well, they 
had a right. They spent their winters and au- 


rHE BOLD FENIAN MEN 


301 


tumns and springs in mills and counting-houses, 
clearing away the commercial garbage of the 
world. And when the graciousness of summer 
came, they emerged, blind as moles, peak-faced. 
And before them stretched the Moyle, a blue 
miracle. The crisp heather, the thick rushes, 
the yellow of the buttercups, the black bog waters. 
And when clouds came before the sun the moun- 
tains drew great purple cloths over them. And 
in the twilight the cricket chirruped. And at 
night the plover cried out against the vast sil- 
ence of the moon. And the hearts of the sell- 
ing people turned from thoughts of who owed 
them money and who was harrying them for 
money. And the tight souls opened, just a little 
perhaps, but even that — Poor garbage men of 
the world, who would begrudge them a little 
beauty? 

Then there were the country people, the land- 
lords, the owners of the soil. Red-faced, sports- 
men, connoisseurs of cattle, a sort of super-far- 
mer, they were as natural to the soil as the fisher- 
folk or the tillers. Their stock remained from 
ancient tides of battle, centuries before. The 
founders of the families had been Norman barons. 
Highland chiefs, English squires; but the blood 
had adapted itself, as a plant adapts itself in a 


302 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


strange country. And now they were Ulster 
squires. Smiling, shy, independent. They had 
a great feeling for a horse, and a powerful 
sense of fair play. They were very honest folk. 
A station had been set them and they lived 
in it, honestly, uncomplainingly, quite happily. 
But a meadow was a piece of land to them and a 
river a place where trout could be caught, and 
snow was a good thing, because it kept the ground 
warm. They were a folk whom Shane respected 
a great deal, and who respected him — ^but they 
were n’t his folk. 

Above all these of his neighbors towered three 
figures, and the first of these was the admiral. 

He had a name. He had a title, too — Baron 
Fraser of Onabega. But to everybody he was the 
admiral, and in speech plain “sir.” A purple- 
faced and terrible old man, with bushy white eye- 
brows and eagle’s eyes. Very tall, four inches 
over six feet, very erect for all his ninety years, 
with his presence there thundered the guns of 
Drake, there came to the mind the slash of old 
Benbow . . . He had been a midshipman with 
Nelson at Cape Trafalgar. 

Silent and fierce, about his head clouds of 
majesty, all his life had been spent with pursed 
lips and hooded eyes, keeping watch for England 


THE BOLD FENUN MEN 


303 


. . . And never a great battle where he could 
prove himself the peer of Benbow and Drake 
and Nelson . . . Never a dawn when the fleet 
rolled down to battle with polished guns and 
whipping flags . . . And a day came when he 
was too old ... So here he was in the Antrim 
glens . . . 

A great life, his, a great and serviceable life, 
frustrated of glory . . . And well he deserved 
the quiet of Ulster, where he sat and wrote his 
long letters to archaeological papers, proving, he 
thought, that the Irish were a lost tribe of Israel 
and that the Ark of the Covenant was buried on 
Tara Hill . . . And there were none to laugh at 
him . . . All spirit he was; watchful, dogged, in- 
domitable spirit with a little husk of body . . . 
Soon, as he had directed, his old bearded sailor- 
men would take his fla^-covered casket out to sea 
in the night, and the guns would thunder: A 
British admiral sails by . . . 

And there was Simon Fowler in his little cot- 
tage, who was dying by inches from some tropical 
malady ... A small chunky man with white hair 
and wide blue eyes . . . He had been a mission- 
ary in Africa, in China, in India — not the mis- 
sionary of sentimental books, but a prophet whose 
calm voice, whose intrepid eyes, had gained him a 


304 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


hearing everywhere . . . “Put fear away,” he 
had preached in Africa; “let darkness flee. I 
come to tell of the light of the world . . . After 
me will come the sellers of gin and of guns. But 
I shall give you a great magic against them . . . 
Little children love one another ...” In 
China his fire had shamed philosophers: “1 
know your alms-giving. T know your benev- 
olence. It is selfishness. Though I bestow all 
my goods to feed the poor, and though I deliver 
my body to be burned, and have not charity, it 
profiteth me nothing. Unless ye become as little 
children ...” And in the sensuous Indian 
lands, his voice rose in a great shout: “Subtle 
Greece is dead,” he proclaimed, “and razed are 
the fanes of Ephesus. And the Unknown God 
slinks only through the midnight streets . . .” 
“Blessed are the pure in heart . . .” He had 
gone like a flame through the pagan places of the 
world, and here he was dying in the Antrim glens, 
with the quiet of Christ about him, the droning 
of God’s little bees, and the lowing of the 
cattle of Bethlehem . . . He was a great 
man. He had only one contempt: for hired 
clergymen. 

There were three folk of heroic stature around 
him: the admiral, and Simon Fowler, and the 
woman of Tusa hErin. 


THE BOLD FENIAN MEN 


305 


§ 4 

A very small townland is Tusa hErin, the 
smallest in Ireland, it is said. And a very strange 
name on it: Tusa hErin, the beginning of Ire- 
land. Why it is so called, none know. Possibly 
because some Highlanders named it this on 
landing there. Probably because it was a divi- 
sion between the Scottish and Irish clans. So it 
was called when the Bruce fled to Ireland. So it 
is called to this day. 

Twenty acres or so are in it — a wind and sea 
lashed little estate, a great gray house and a gar- 
den of yew-trees. For ten years it had been un- 
tenanted, until a Miss O’Malley had bought it, 
and opened the great oak doors, and let the sea- 
air blow through the windows of it, and clipped 
the garden of the yews. The country people 
knew little of her, except that she had a great re- 
serve. To the glensmen she was Bean Tusig 
Erin, the woman of Tusa hErin. 

“What kind of a person is she?” Shane asked. 

“A strange woman is in it, your Honor; a 
strange and dark woman.” 

“An old lady?” 


3o6 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


“If she was one of us, she would be an old 
woman, your Honor, what with the bitter work 
and the hard ways. But being what she is, she is 
a young woman, your Honor. I heard tell she 
said she was thirty-four.” 

“Is she good-looking?” 

“Well, now, your Honor, that would surely be 
a hard thing to say. A great dark face she has 
on her, and her head high, the like of a grand 
horse. Barring her eyes, you might call her a fine 
woman.” 

“What ’s wrong with her eyes?” 

“Hard eyes she has, your Honor, hating eyes. 
She ’s always looking at you to see if it is an 
enemy is in it. A queer woman, your Honor; 
the like of her was never known.” 

“But how?” 

“The talk that ’s at her, your Honor. The 
great hatred she bes having of England, and the 
talk of old Irish times.” 

“And she a lady?” 

“You ’d think it was a queen was in it, with the 
high head of her, and the proud step of a racing 
horse. You would, your Honor, you would so.” 

He asked the admiral about her. 

“Do you know this Miss O’Malky, sir, of 
Tusa hErin?” 

“I had the honor to meet her twice. Camp* 


THE BOLD FENIAN MEN 


307 


bell. A very great woman. A great loss, Camp- 
bell, a great loss.” 

“Who is she, sir?” 

“Good God! Do you mean to tell me you 
don’t know who Grace O’Malley is?” 

“No, sir, I don’t.” 

“One of the greatest Shaksperian actresses, 
possibly, the English stage ever knew — and you 
never heard of her. Good God! How abomin- 
ably ignorant you merchant marine men are!” 

“Abominably so, sir . . . But please tell me, 
sir, why does she hate England so much?” 

“Oh, these geniuses, Campbell! They must 
hate something, or love something to excess . . . 
Depths of feeling, I suppose . . . Campbell, do 
you know anything about Ogham writing?” 

“Only that it’s straight lines on the corners 
of stones, sir!” 

“Well, now, I think I ’ve discovered something 
important, most terribly important ... You 
may have heard of the Babylonian cuneiform 
script . . .” and the old gentleman was off full 
gallop on his hobby . . . 

From Simon Fowler he extracted a little more 
information. 

“Fowler, do you know Miss O’Malley of 
Tusa hErin?” 

“I do, poor lady.” 


3o8 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


“Why poor lady?” 

“Would n’t you call any one poor lady who 
had just been widowed, then lost her two chil- 
dren? Poor lady, I wish I could say something 
to comfort her.” 

“You! Fowler! You couldn’t say any- 
thing?” 

“The wisdom of God, Shane, is sometimes very 
hard to see. Our physical eyes can only see a 
little horizon, and yet the whole world is behind 
it. Miss O’Malley is not a case for any of the 
ministers of God . . . but for Himself . . 

“You exaggerate, Fowler. Surely you are 
wrong . . . They say she is young and proud 
and beautiful.” 

“I don’t know. I never noticed . . . She 
may be young and proud and beautiful ... I 
only thought of the dark harassed thing — in- 
side all the youth and pride and beauty . . .” 


§ 5 

He met her for the first time at a neighbor- 
ing fair . . . 

Eleven on a hot June morning, and the little 
town was crowded, like some old-time immigrant 
ship. Women in plaid shawls and frilled caps. 


THE BOLD FENIAN MEN 


309 


men in somber black as befitted a monthly occa- 
sion. Squawking of ducks and hens, trudging 
of donkeys, creaking of carts, unbelievably stub- 
born bullocks and heifers being whacked by ash- 
plants, colts frisking. Girls with baskets of eggs 
and butter; great carts of hay and straw. Apple- 
women with bonnets of cabbage-leaves against the 
sun. Herring-men bawling like auctioneers. 
Squealing of young pigs. An old clothes dealer 
hoarse with effort. A ballad singer split the air 
with an English translation of Bean an Fhir 
Ruaidh, “The Red-haired Man’s Wife.” 

Ye Muses Nine, 

Combine, and lend me your aid. 

Until I raise 

the praise of a beautiful maid — 

The crash of a drover driving home a bargain : 

“Hold out your hand now, by God ! till I be 
after making you an offer. Seven pound ten, 
now. Hell to my soul if I give you another ha’ 
penny. Wait now. I ’ll make it seven pound 
fifteen.” 

“Is it insulting the fine decent beast you are?” 

“Eight pounds five and ten shillings back for a 
luck-penny?” 

“Is it crazy you ’ve gone all of a sudden, deal- 
ing man. If the gentle creature was in Dublin 


310 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


town, sure they ’d be hanging blue ribbons around 
her neck until she wilted with the weight of them.” 

“It ’s hanging their hats on the bones of her 
they ’d be, and them sticking out the like of 
branches from a bush.” 

“Yerra Jasus! Do you hear the man, and her 
round as a bottle from the fine filling feeding. 
You could walk your shin-bones off to the knee, 
and you ’d not find a cow as has had the treatment 
of this cow. Let you be on our way now.” 

“Look, honest man. Put out your hand, and 
wait till I spit on my fist — ” 

Through the doors of Michael Doyle’s public 
house a young farmer walked uncertainly. He 
gently swung a woman’s woolen stocking in his 
right hand, and in the foot of the stocking was 
a large round stone : 

“I am young Packy McGee of Ballymoyle,” 
he announced, “the son of old Packy McGee of 
Ballymoyle, a great man in his day, but never 
the equal of young Packy McGee. I have gone 
through Scotland and Ireland, Wales, the harvest 
fields of England, and I have never yet found the 
equal for murder and riot of young Packy McGee. 
I am young Packy McGee. I am young Packy 
McGee of Ballymore, and I don’t care who 
knows it. Is there any decent man in this fair 
that considers himself the equal of young Packy 


THE BOLD FENIAN MEN 31 1 

McGee?” And he walked through the fair, 
chanting his litany and gently swinging the 
woman’s woolen stocking with the large round 
stone in the foot of it . . . 

The penny poet changed from the high grace 
notes of “The Red-Haired Man’s Wife” to the 
surge of a come-all-ye. There was the under- 
current of a pipe drone to his voice: 

Fare-you-well, Enniskillen, fare-you-well for a while, 
All round the borders of Erin’s green isle 
And when the war ’s over return I shall soon, 

And your arms will be o-o-open for your Enniskillen 
Dragoon. 

In the intervals between verses a black-bearded 
man with blue spectacles announced solemnly that 
he was Professor Handley direct from Eng- 
lish and German universities, empowered by the 
Rosicrucian order to distribute a remarkable pan- 
acea at the nominal sum of sixpence a bottle . . . 

Forests of cows’ horns and drovers’ sticks, 
clamor of frightened cattle, emphatic slapping of 
palms. Clouds of dust where the horse fair was 
carried on. Stands of fruit and cakes. Stalls of 
religious ornaments, prayer-books, and rosary 
beads ... A shooting gallery ... A three- 
card trickster, white and pimpled of face . . . 
A trick-of-the-loop man, with soap-box and 
greasy string ... A man who sold a gold watch. 


312 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


a sovereign, and some silver for the sum of fifteen 
shillings . . . An old man with the Irish bag- 
pipes, bellows strapped to arm, playing “The 
Birds Among the Trees,” “The Swallow-tail 
Coat,” “The Green Fields of America” . . . 
small boys regarding him curiously . . . later 
young farmers and girls would be dancing sets 
to his piping ... At the end of the street a 
ballad-monger declaiming, not singing — ^his head 
thrown back, his voice issuing in a measured 
chant . . . “The Lament for the Earl of Lu- 
can”: 

Patrick Sarsfield, Ireland’s wonder! 

Fought in the field like bolts of thunder! 

One of Ireland’s best commanders! 

Now is food for the crows of Flanders! 

Och ! Ochone ! 

A knot of older people had gathered around 
him, white-headed farmers, bent turf-cutters of 
the glens, a girl-child with eyes like saucers. A 
priest stopped to listen . . . The crude English 
of the ballad faded out, until there was noth- 
ing but disheveled agony . . . rhythm ... a 
wail . . . Somewhere a leaping current of feel- 
ing .. . There was a woman on the edge of the 
crowd, a lady . . . She came nearer, as though 
hypnotized . . . 

The country bard stopped suddenly, exalted. 


THE BOLD FENIAN MEN 


313 


and swung dramatically into Gaelic . . . Drop- 
ping the alien tongue he seemed to have dropped 
fetters . . . His voice rose to a paean ... he 
took on stature ... he looked straight in the 
eye of the sun . . . And for Shane the clamor of 
the drovers ceased . . . And there was the 
plucked note of harpers . . . And fires of an- 
cient oak . . . and wolf-dogs sleeping on skins of 
elk . . . And there was a wasted place in the 
twilight, and grass through a split hearthstone 
. . . And a warrior-poet, beaten, thinking bitter 
under the stars . . . 

Do threasgar an saoghal agas do thainic an gaoth mar 
smal — 

Alastrom, Casar, *s an mead do hhi da bpairt; 

Ta an Teamhair na fear agas feach an Traoi mar ta! 
'S na Sasanaigh fein, do h* fheidir go bhfaigh dis bas! 

A voice spoke excitedly, imperiously to Shane : 
“What is he saying? Do you know Gaelic?” 
“I ’m afraid I Ve forgotten my Gaelic, but I 
know this song.” 

“Then what is it? Please tell me. I must 
know.” 

“He says: 

‘‘The world conquers them all. The wind whirls like 
dust. 

Alexander, Caesar, and the companies whom they led. 


314 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


Tara is grass, and see how Troy is now! 

And the English themselves, even they may die.’^ 

“How great!” she said. “How very great!” 
She turned to Shane, and as he saw the dark im- 
perious face, he knew intuitively he was speaking 
to the Woman of Tusa hErin. She seemed 
puzzled for an instant. Something in Shane’s 
clothes, his carriage . . . 

“You don’t look as if you understood Gaelic? 
How is it you can translate this poem?” 

“I knew it as a boy. My father was a Gaelic 
poet.” 

“Then you are Shane Campbell.” 

“And you are the woman of Tusa hErin!” 

“You know Tusa hErin?” 

“I know every blade of grass in the glens.” 

“If you are ever near Tusa hErin, come and 
see me.” 

“I should like to.” 

“Will you really?” 

“Yes.” 

She left him as abruptly as she spoke to him, 
going over to the ballad-monger. She left him 
a little dazed . . . He was aware of vitality . . . 
He was like a man on a wintry day who experi- 
ences a sudden shaft of warm sun, or somebody 
in quiet darkness whose eye is caught by the rising 
of the moon. 


THE BOLD FENIAN MEN 


315 


§ 6 

As in a story from some old unsubtle book, in 
passing the gates of Tusa hErin, he had gone 
into another world, a grave and courteous world, 
not antique — that was not the word, but just 
older ... A change of tempo ... A change of 
atmosphere . . . The Bois Dormant, the Sleep- 
ing Wood of the French fairy-tale? . . . Not 
that, for the Sleeping Wood should be a gray 
wood, a wood of twilight, with the birds a- 
drowse in their nests . . . And here were clipped 
rich yew-trees, and turf firm as a putting-green’s, 
and rows of dignified flowers, like pretty gra- 
cious ladies; and a little lake where a swan 
moved, as to music; and the sunshine was rich 
as wine here ... all golden and green . . . But 
the atmosphere? He thought of the cave of 
Gearod Oge, the Wizard Earl in the Rath of 
Mullaghmast, and the story of it ... A farmer 
man had noticed a light from the old fort, and 
creepmg in he had seen men in armor sleeping with 
their horses beside them . . . And he examined 
the armor and the saddlery, and cautiously half 
drew a sword from its sheath . . . And the sol- 


3i6 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


dier’s head rose and: ^^Bhfuil an trath annT* 
his voice cried . . . “Has the time come?” “It 
is not, your Honor,” the farmer said in terror, 
and shoved the sword back and fled . . . An old 
man said for a surety that had the farmer drawn 
the blade from the scabbard, the Wizard Earl 
would have awakened, and Ireland been free . . . 
There was great beauty and great Irishness to 
that story, but there was terror to it, and there 
was no terror on this sweet place . . . 

He said: It is a trick of my head, an illusion 
that this is different. Some shading that comes 
from the yews, some phenomenon of cliff and 
water . . . But even that did not circumscribe 
the rich grave look of grounds and house. A 
song from “The Tempest” came to him: 

Full fathom five thy father lies; 

Of his bones are coral made; 

Those are pearls that were his eyes: 

Nothing of him that doth fade 
But doth suffer a sea-change 
Into something rich and strange . . . 

That was it, something rich and strange, like 
some old cloister into which one might turn from 
an inquiet and hubbubby street ... A knock at 
an oaken wicket; a peering shy brother, and one 
was on green lawns and the shadows of a gabled 
monastery. Cowled, meditative friars, and the 


THE BOLD FENIAN MEN 


317 


quiet of Christ like spread wings . . . But there 
was a reason for the cloister’s glamour: cool 
thoughts and the rhythm of quiet praying, and 
the ringing of the little bell of mass, and the cad- 
enced sacramental. All these were sympathetic 
magic . . . But whence came the glamour of 
Tusa hErin? 


§ 7 

And she said: “I am glad you came. I 
knew somehow you would.” 

“I am glad, too. I knew Tusa hErin as a boy. 
It was then a weird old place. The yew-trees 
were undipped, the turf riotous, the little lake un- 
graveled ... It had an eeriness. But now — it 
is very different.” 

“Any place is different for being loved, tended.” 

“I suppose so. One loves but one gets careless 
toward ... I know Antrim has always had an 
immense attraction for me . . .” 

“Antrim — alone ?” 

“Yes, of course, Antrim.” 

“Not all Ireland, then?” 

“I never thought of Ireland as all Ireland.” 

“O Shane Campbell, you ’ve sailed so much 


3i8 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


and seen so much — China, they tell me, and South 
America, and the Levant. And in the North, 
Archangel. I ’ll warrant you don’t know Ire- 
land.” 

“I never saw much, though, in any place outside 
Antrim.” 

“You never saw much in the little towns of the 
Pale, or gray Dublin, with the Parliament where 
Grattan spoke now a money-changer’s business 
house, and the bulk of Trinity of Gol.dsmith and 
Burke — or the great wide streets where four-in- 
hands used to go. And Three-Rock Mountain. 
And Bray. And the beauty of the Boyne Valley. 
And the little safe harbors of the South. And the 
mountains of Kerry. And all the kingdom of 
Connacht. And the great winds of Donegal.” 

“But it ’s so eery, deserted, a dead country. 
All like Tusa hErin was before you took it.” 

“If one could take it all, and do to it as I ’ve 
done to Tusa hErin. By the way,” she asked sud- 
denly, “is Tusa hErin haunted?” 

“No, I never heard. Did you see any^ 
thing?” 

“I think I heard something a few times. A 
piper piping when the storms rose. A queer little 
tune — like that thing about McCrimmon.” 

*^Cha till, cha till, cha till McCrimmon.** 

“Are there words to it?” 







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THE BOLD FENIAN MEN 


319 


cogadh mo sidhe cha till McCrimmon/^ 

Never, never, never, will return McCrimmon. 

With war or peace never will come McCrimmon. 

For money or spoil never will return McCrimmon. 

He will come no more till the Day of the Gathering.” 

“A lamenting tune like that, I heard.” 

“The drone was just the grinding of the waves, 
the air the wind among the yews.” 

“That ’s possible. But is n’t a phantom piper 
possible, too, in a land of ghosts?” 


§ 8 

“A land of ghosts”; the phrase remained with 
him. And the lighted lamp and the burning peat 
fire seemed to invoke like some necromantic rit- 
ual. How often, and he a young boy, had the 
names trumpeted through his being. Brian Boru 
at Clontarf, and the routed red Danes. And with 
the routing of the Danes, Ireland had come to 
peaceful days, and gentle white-clothed saints 
arose and monasteries with tolling bells, and great 
Celtic crosses . . . And were the Druids, 

their cursing stones, their Ogham script . . . 
Gone old Celtic divinities, Angus of the Boyne, 
and Manannan, son of Lir, god of the sea . . 


'320 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


and the peace of Galilee came over the joyous 
hunting land . . . The little people of the hills, 
with their pygmy horses, their pygmy pipes, 
cowered, went into exile, under the thunder of 
Rome . . . And the land was meek that it might 
inherit the kingdom of heaven . . . And the Eng- 
lish came . . . The Earls of Ulster fled into 
Spain . . . And only here and there was a mem- 
ory of old-time heroes, of Cuchulain of the Red 
Branch; of Maeve, queen of Connacht, in her 
fighting chariot, her great red cloak; of Dermot, 
who abducted Grania from the king of Ireland’s 
camp, and knew nine ways of throwing the spear 
. . . The O’Neils remembered Shane, who 
brought Queen Elizabeth to her knees with love 
and terror . . . And Owen Roe, the Red . . . 
And the younger Hugh O’Neil, with his hard- 
bitten Ulstermen at Benburb . . . They had to 
bring the greatest general of Europe, Cromwell, 
the lord protector, to subdue the Ulster clans 
. . . Sullen peace, and the Stuarts came back, 
and again Ireland was lulled with their suave 
manners, the scent of the white rose . . . The 
crash of the Boyne Water, and King James run- 
ning for his life . . . And Limerick’s siege, and 
the Treaty, and Patrick Sarsfield and the Wild 
Geese setting wing for France . . . France 
knew them, Germany, Sweden, even Russia . . . 


THE BOLD FENIAN MEN 


321 


Ramillies and the Spaniard knew Lord Clare’s 
Dragoons . . . And Fontenoy and the thunder 
of the Irish Brigade . . . And Patrick Sarsfield, 
Earl of Lucan, dead at the end of the day . . . 
Even to-day Europe knew them: O’Donnel, 
Duke of Tetuan and grandee of Spain; and Pat- 
rice McMahon, Duke of Magenta, who had 
been made president of the Republic of France — 
they were of the strain of Lucan's wild Geese . . . 

And again a sullen peace, and Ulster rang to 
the trumpet of American freedom, and the 
United Irishmen arose in Belfast . . . And Nap- 
per Tandy at Napoleon’s court, and Hoche with 
his ships in Bantry Bay . . . Wolfe Tone’s 
mangled throat, and Lord Edward Fitzgerald 
murdered by his captors . . . 

What had made these men, sane men — Ulster- 
men mostly — risk life and face death so gal- 
lantly? What brought out the men of ’48 and 
the men of ’67 ? What was making little Bigger 
fight so savagely in Parliament, blocking the leg- 
islation of the empire? What had got under 
their skins, into their blood? Surely not for a 
gray half-deserted city? Surely not for little 
bays and purple mountains? Surely not for an 
illiterate peasantry, half crazed by the fear of 
hell? 

He tried to see Ireland as a personality, as one 


322 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


sees England, like the great Britannia on a 
copper penny, helmeted, full-breasted, great-hip- 
ped, with sword and shield, a bourgeois concept of 
majesty, a ponderous, self-conscious personality: 

When Britain first, at Heaven’s command 
Arose from out the azure main, — 

Just like that! 

And Scotland he could see as a young woman, 
in kilt and plaid and Glengarry cap, a shrewd 
young woman though, with a very decisive per- 
sonality, clinching a bargain as the best of dealers 
might, a little forward. He could think of her 
as the young girl whose hand Charles the Young 
Pretender kissed, and who had said to him di- 
rectly: “I’d liefer hae a buss for my mou’.” 
“I ’d rather have a kiss on my mouth.” Scot- 
land knew what she wanted and got it, a pert, 
a solid, a likable girl. 

But Ireland, Ireland of the gray mists, the 
gray towns. How to see her? The country 
ballad came to him. The “Shan Van Vocht,” 
the poor old woman, gray, shawled, pitiable, 
whom her children were seeking to reinstate in 
her home with many fields: 

And where will they have their camp? 

Says the Shan Van Vocht. 

And where will they have their camp? 


THE BOLD FENIAN MEN 


323 


Says the Shan Van Vocht. 

In the Curragh of Klidare, 

The boys will all be there. 

With their pikes in good repair, 

Says the Shan Van Vocht. 

To the Curragh of Kildare 
The boys they will repair, 

And Lord Edward will be there, 

Says the Shan Van Vocht. 

No! Not enough. One might work, sacri- 
fice money, for the Shan Van Vocht — ^but life, 
no! He thought again. Poor Mangan’s poem 
flashed into his mind and heart . . , 

O my Dark Rosaleen, 

Do not sigh, do not weep! 

The priests are on the ocean green 
They march along the deep. 

There ’s wine from the royal pope 
Upon the ocean green. 

And Spanish ale shall give you hope. 

My dark Rosaleen! 

My own Rosaleen! 

Shall glad your heart, shall give you hope. 

Shall give you health, and help, and hope. 

My dark Rosaleen! 

Ah, that was it! Not pity, but gallant, fiery 
love. Modern ideals and ancient chivalry . . . 
A young dark woman with a quivering mouth. 


324 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


with eyes bright in tears . . . There was an 
old favorite print that portrayed her, a slim 
wistful figure resting a pale hand on a mute harp, 
a great elk-hound at her feet on guard, and back 
of her the rising sun shone on the antique round 
tower ... A pretty picture, but was it enough? 
He tried to envisage her close, concentrated . . . 
There the dog, there the harp, there the slim form 
. . . But the face ... It seemed to elude him. 
And suddenly it flashed at him with abrupt dark 
beauty . . . the face of the woman of Tusa 
hErin . . . 


§ 9 

The long Ulster twilight had set in, the twi- 
light of bats, gray-blue, utterly peaceful ... the 
little chiming of the sea . . . Even the wind was 
still . . . All things drowsed, like a dog before 
the fire, relaxed but not asleep . . . Beneath her 
feet the turf was firm . . . beneath that the hush- 
een-husho of the purple Moyle . . . Soon there 
would be a moon and her servants would saddle 
Shane’s horse for him and he would ride home in 
the Antrim moonlight, eighteen miles of grim road 
with the friendly moon above him, and the sing- 


THE BOLD FENIAN MEN 


325 


ing Moyle on his left hand, and on his right the 
purple glens . . . And the shadows . . . the 
delicate tracery of the ash-tree, and the tall 
rowans, and the massive blue shadows of the 
cliffs ... a golden and silver land ... A very 
sweet silence had fallen between them, as if music 
had ceased and become restful color . . . They 
watched the quiet swan . . . 

“I am a little afraid to leave Tusa hErin,” 
she said suddenly and softly, as though thinking 
aloud ... “I am like a nun who has been in a 
convent . . . She is lost in the open world . . . 
Will I ever again find a place like Tusa hErin?” 

“Granya, are you selling Tusa hErin?” 

“I have sold it, Shane.” 

“I am sorry,” was all he could say. A little 
silence, and he could feel her smiling through the 
dusk. 

“You never ask any questions, Shane?” 

“It never occurs to me to ask them, Granya. If 
any one wants to tell me a thing, I know they 
will, and if they don’t why should I intrude?” 

“I should like to tell you why I sold Tusa 
hErin. But I cannot. It is my own secret.” 

He nodded in the dusk: “I understand.” 

She turned to him slowly. Her sweet dark 
head was like some fragrant shrub . . . Her 
low soft voice had so much life to it . . . 


326 


THE WIND BLOJVETH 


“I Y/onder if you know what a friend you are, 
Shane? If you understand how peaceful it is 
to have you here? You are such a sweet fact, 
Shane, like the moon.” 

“I am a friend, Granya . . 

“You are, yes . . . And you know so little 
about me, Shane. And I know all about you . . . 
I know the adventures of your youth . . . And 
of the hard girl of Louth, and the poor harassed 
woman of Marseilles . . . And of the little 
Syrian wife whom you did n’t know you loved 
until you lost her . . . and the gray voyages to 
the cruel country ... At times I see you'like a 
little boy hunting the leprechawn . . . And then 
I see your face, your eyes, and understand how 
you commanded men in ships . . .You are like 
some beautiful play, Shane ... I wonder what 
is the ending?” 

“It is already ended, Granya.” 

“No, Shane. I know, the end has n’t come 
. . . I know you, Shane,” she asked abruptly; 
“what do you know about me?” 

“Nothing much, Granya, except that you are 
you. I heard you were a great actress . . . and 
that you had two babies . . . who died . . .” 

“Not a great actress, Shane, a very good one, 
perhaps. I might have been great one day . . . 


THE BOLD FENIAN MEN 


327 


and again, I migh n’t. I shall never know . . . 
And I had two babies .... They were very 
nice little people, Shane. I was very fond of 
them . . . But a physical life is a little thing, I 
have come to believe, and there is another life, 
a life of thought and emotion. And that one is 
so long ... It seems ages since I was an actress 
and had two pretty babies. It seems in another 
life . . . Shane, I don’t think I was alive until 
my babies died . . .” 

“I don’t understand, Granya.” 

“I mean this, Shane, that things were so cas- 
ual to me. They came and they went, and I was 
what I was, and that was all . . . When you 
were a boy, Shane, you had what I never had — 
wonder. I was the child of actors, Shane, 
brought up to a mechanical tradition, knowing 
the business thoroughly — a part was words and 
directions, and a salary . . . That things were 
mimic meant nothing ... do you see? That 
there was a life that was unreal, and another life 
that was real, and then a further life, too subtle, 
too profound for the value of words . . . one 
sees glimpses . . . one feels . . . and when you 
try to fix it, it eludes you. Do you understand? 
Like your mirage, a little . . . That is only a 
symbol . . . Am I talking nonsense, Shane? 


328 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


Anyway, I took things, well, just casually . . . 

“See the moon rising, Shane?’’ she paused. 
She turned again. 

“I got married, just got married; he was a 
good man, Shane. But I did n't love him. I 
loved nobody. I got married because he was a 
suitable and every one got married. And just 
the same way I accepted marriage . . . And 
when he died, I was very sorry, but impersonally 
sorry ... as if something nice in the world had 
been gone ... a swan shot . . . 

“And my little people, Shane, they were very 
nice little people ... I was fond of them, but 
as I might be fond of some terrier dogs ... I 
was good to them . . . Often I sit here and won- 
der: Was I good enough? And, Shane, God is 
my witness and this garden, and the moon above, 
there is nothing I could give them I held 
back . . . 

“You know how they died, Shane? ... I was 
playing and my house went on fire, and the ser- 
vants fled . . . When I came back from the 
theater a policeman said: ‘We got everything 
all right. Miss O’Malley. Your dogs, your 
piano.’ . . . ‘Where did you put the babies?’ 
I asked . . . They said: ‘What babies?’ 

“Shane, I knew after a little while that I cried 
too easily ... a little sweet rain of affection 


THE BOLD FENIAN MEN 


329 


. . . April ... I did n’t forget them ... I 
wouldn’t let myself . . . And then I thought: 
God I if I had loved my husband my heart would 
have been like a cracked cup when he died . . . 
And when my babies died, I could not have lived 
. . . And all I shed of tears was a little shower 
of April . . . O Shane, one is n’t like that when 
one is hurt . . . Do you remember David, Shane, 
when he went up to the chamber over the gate 
. . . and as he went thus he said, ‘O my son Ab- 
salom, my son Absalom! would God I had died 
for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son I’ . . . And 
he was only a man, Shane . . . 

“Am I bothering you, Shane? No? I am 
just thinking aloud, with you there ... I never 
thought I could, with any human being . . . 

“And then I knew, Shane . . . Part of me was 
not alive . . . That was terrible to know, like 
finding out a horrible deformity, or knowing you 
are insane . . . And I began to watch people 
... I could say: There is a woman who knows 
she is loved, Shane . . . There is a radiance in 
her face, an indescribable something ... You 
remember the Bible word ‘Shechinah,’ the glory 
of the Lord! . . . And there were women with 
children . . . that had lost themselves in the joy 
of giving . . . would always have that joy of 
giving . . . And it made me feel strange, shame- 


330 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


ful . . . as though I had no breasts . . . 

“I must have been a little insane then, Shane. 
I would go along the streets, looking at people, 
and saying: ‘That person looks as if they would 
understand,’ and thinking of stopping them with: 
‘Please, a moment, there is something wrong 
with me I’ But I knew they would n't under- 
stand . . . would n’t believe it real . . . Even 
if they were kind, all they would say was : ‘It ’s 
all imagination ... as if imagination were not 
the most terrible thing in the world . . . All 
that is wrong with the poor mad people is imag- 
ination . . . Shane, I was like some poor cripple 
holding out his deformity to the passers-by, ask- 
ing for help . . . All he would want was money, 
but I wanted . . . oh, I don’t know what I 
wanted . . . 

“And, then, Shane, I would go into a church, 
and pray, and wait, kneeling there, for something 
to happen ... It never happened . . . Then I 
would laugh. People used to turn and look at 
me ... I began to hate them. I grew proud. 
I hated them more and more . . . 

“I said I ’d get back to work, and forget it 
all ... I was made as I was made . . . Accept 
it ... I thought I could ... I was to play 
Lady Macbeth in Nottingham. 

“You know how she enters, Shane. She comes 


THE BOLD FENIAN MEN 


331 


in reading a letter. She is alone on the stage, in 
Macbeth* 5 castle of Inverness : ‘ “They met me 

in the day of success,” ’ she reads — Macbeth is 
writing of the witches in the desert place: ‘ “and 
I have learned by the perfectest report, they have 
more in them than mortal knowledge.” ’ I came 
on as I always came on . . . And the moment 
I left the wings, Shane, saw the audience, a 
strange thing happened . . . Illusion died, not 
died . . . but was dead . . . And there I was 
supposed to be reading a letter that had never 
been written by people who had never possibly 
an existence, before an audience who had paid a 
little money to be amused ... I could n’t read 
it. I just could n’t . . . 

“Behind me in the wings they were prompting, 
whispering fiercely . . . But I could n’t ... I 
stood there . . . Then I said: I’ll go off the 
stage. But I could n’t do that even . . . My 
feet were shackled to the ground ... I seemed 
to have been charmed . . . My hand fell to my 
side . . . And then a panic came. My knees 
hit one another. My teeth chattered . . . 
awful, awful . . . 

“There was such a silence. The audience 
Stirred, whispered . . . Then some one laughed 
. . . Never laugh, Shane, suddenly, with 
me ... I crumpled up. They rang the curtain 


332 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


down ... I stole away to Ireland . . . When- 
ever I am not hating — enough, the thought of 
that laugh comes to me . . .” She shivered on 
her seat. 

“That was only nervousness, Granya. Some- 
body got nervous and laughed.” 

“No, Shane, no.” 

“They talk of people laughing in the face of 
death. It ’s just a nervous action, Granya.” 

“I tell you, no, Shane.” She grew vehement. 
“It ’s a cruel country, England. And Shane, 
they hate us Irish. As long as we are pleasant, 
witty, as long as we are buffoons . . . but let 
us be human beings, Shane, and they hate us.” 

“Don’t be silly, Granya !” 

“I ’m not silly, Shane. I know. They hate 
us because we have something they have not. 
The starved Irish peasant is higher than the 
English peer. He has a song in his heart, a 
gay song or a sad song, and his eyes see won- 
ders . . .” 

“But, Granya, we are only a little people, and 
they all but rule the world ... You are wrong. 
They don’t hate us.” 

“Do you remember Haman, Shane; Haman 
who had everything: 

“ ‘And Haman told them of . . . all the 


THE BOLD FENIAN MEN 


333 


things wherein the king had promoted’; and he 
said: ‘Yet all this availeth me nothing so long 
as I see Mordecai the Jew sitting at the king’s 
gate.’ ” 

“Shane, do you remember how Haman died?” 

“Granya I” 

She rose. Her hands stretched out to the 
Irish hills. Her voice took on the throbbing of 
drums : 

“Oh! the Erne shall run red 
With redundance of blood, 

The earth shall rock beneath our tread, 

And flame wrap hill and wood, 

And gun-peal and slogan-cry 
Make many a glen serene, 

Ere you shall fade, ere you shall die, 

My dark Rosaleen! 

My own Rosaleen!” 

“Poor Granya 1” he said. He caught and 
kissed her hand. 

She let her other fall on his shoulder for an 
instant. 

“Good night, Shane!” she said abruptly. 
She moved swifdy toward the house through the 
yew-trees. In her pale dress against the moon- 
lit turf, between the dark trees, she was like some 
old, heart-wringing ghost . . . 


334 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


§IO 

He brought back from Tusa hErin that night 
a sense of dread. What in God’s name had 
Granya done? To what committed herself? 
There were rumors abroad that the men of ’67 
were not dead yet ... In America, in the hills 
of Kerry, in Galway, there was plotting . . . not 
glorious, but sinister plotting . . . God! had 
they enmeshed her? 

He had three times heard her sing the old 
Ulster ballad of General Munro: 

Up came Munro’s sister, she was well dressed in green, 
And his sword by her side that was once bright and keen. 
And she said to the brave men who with her did go, 
“Come, we’ll have revenge for my brother Munro!” 

He had looked on that as only a queer romantic 
gesture, but with what she said last night, it oc- 
curred to him that there was a deeper motif to it 
all . . . She was often in Dublin these days 
. . . Did they? Had they? . . . 

If it had been the Jacobite times, or ’98 or 
even ’48, he would not have minded. The 
Irish might call these Irish rebellions, but in 


THE BOLD FENIAN MEN 


335 


reality they were world affairs. James and the 
Prince of Orange were the clash of the ideal of 
courtliness and tradition worn to a thin blade 
and of the stubborn progress of pulsing thought. 
And ’98 was the echo of the surge for liberty — 
the frenzy of France and the stubborn Yankee 
steel . . . And ’48 was another breathing of 
the world . . . Even ’67 he would not have 
minded. Sixty-seven was a gallant romantic 
rally, a dream of pikes amid green banners, and 
men drilling by moon-lit rivers . . . 

But to-day was different . . . Revenge was in 
the air, and revenge was no wild justice, as an 
old writer had said. Revenge was an evil pos- 
session . . . An exhausting, sinister mood . . * 
The men who would fight this modern battle, if 
battle there was to be one, were dark scowling 
men . . . The amenities of battle, the gallantry 
of flags meant nothing to them. They would 
shoot from behind ditches in the dark ... In 
America was talk of dynamite — an idealist using 
a burglar’s trick . . . There was no gallantry 
that way . . . 

And besides, it was n’t an Irish war. It was 
a matter of agriculture ... A war of peasants 
against careless landlords, Irish themselves in 
the main, who had fled to England to avoid the 
suicidal monotony of Irish country life, and lost 


336 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


their money in the pot-houses and gambling-dens 
of London, and turned to their tenants for more, 
forgetting in the glamour of London the poverty 
of the Irish bogs ... It was contemptible to 
squeeze the peasants as a money-lender squeezes 
his victims, but the peasants’ redress, the furtive 
musket and horrible dynamite, that was terrible. 
God, what a mess! . . . And had Granya been 
caught into that evil problem, a kingfisher 
among cormorants? 

And if she had what was he going to do about 
it? 

What could he do? What right had he to 
meddle with her destiny? Friendly they had be- 
come, close sweet friends — the thought of her 
was like the thought of the hills purple with 
heather, — but friendship and destiny are a sweet 
curling wave and a gaunt cliff. They were two 
different people, independent. Shane Camp- 
bell and the Woman of Tusa hErin. 


§ II 


She had been distraught all the evening. 
Merry, feverishly merry at times, and again si- 


THE BOLD FENIAN MEN 


337 


lent, her eyes far off, her mouth set. She rose 
suddenly from the piano she was playing, and 
looked at him. Standing, above the light of 
the candles, her face and head were like some 
dark soft flower. 

“Shane, you are a very true friend of mine, 
are n’t you?” 

“Yes, Granya.” 

“If I wanted a very great favor, would you 
consider it?” 

“Not consider, but do it.” 

“Yes, but the risk,” she faltered. “I hardly 
dare — ” 

“What risk? What are you talking about, 
Granya?” A thought struck him. “Is it 
money? Don’t be silly and talk about risk! 
Anything I can give you is yours, and welcome I” 

“It’s not money, Shane. And thank you! 
It ’s — it ’s this — ” 

“Yes, Granya.” 

“It ’s this, Shane. Would you — ^would you 
bring a ship for me from St. Petersburg to Lough 
Foyle, very quietly?” 

“What kind of a ship?” 

“A ship, just a ship, a sailing-ship.” 

“What ’s in the ship?” 

She paused. “Guns, Shane.” 

“No, Granya. I won’t.” 


338 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


“Oh, well,” she sat down, “I should n't have 
asked.” 

“Granya,” he walked over and caught her 
shoulder, “don’t be foolish.” 

“I ’m not foolish, Shane. If I am, it ’s done 
now.” She smiled . . . The air crashed out be- 
neath her fingers. Her voice rang: 

In came the the captain’s daughter — the captain of the 
Yeos — 

Saying, “Brave United Irishmen, we ’ll ne’er again be 
foes. 

One thousand pounds I’ll give to you, and go across the 
sea; 

And dress myself in man’s attire and fight for liberty!” 

“You ’ll not move one foot from Tusa 
hErin!” 

“O Shane, Tusa hErin ’s no longer mine, and 
I Ve got to go.” 

“Because the ship and the guns are mine, 
Shane,” she smiled quietly; “my present.” 

With a terrific smash of the fist he broke in 
the top of the piano. The wires jangled in pan- 
demonium. The candles fell to the floor. 

“Hell’s fire and God’s damnation!” He 
swore at her. “You fool!” 

She rose, her breasts heaving. Her eyes 
flashed. 


THE BOLD FENIAN MEN 


339 


“You Ve no right to speak to me like that, 
Shane Campbell.” 

“Oh, yes, I have. Every damned right! Do 
you think I ’d let any woman go cruising around 
the North Seas, with a crew of foreigners, and 
a shipmaster she does n't know ... I ’ll bring 
the bi — the boat in . . .” 


§ 12 

They left the city of strange ugly women, with 
great spirit in their faces, and great bearing to 
the body of them, and of slim cat-like men, who 
had great power in their eyes ... A very beauti- 
ful city of churches and hammered brass ... a 
place of high rarefied thinking and savage animal 
passion . . . They left it on a July morning with 
the sun high . . . And they sailed east, sou’- 
east down the Gulf of Finland, until Dago Is- 
land was on their port quarter . . . 

And they rolled down the Baltic Sea, sailing 
SQu’-sou’west, until they passed Gotland, and, 
they edged west again, leaving Bornholm to port 
. . . And they sailed past Malmo into the 
Sound, heading north for the Cattegat . . . 


340 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


They turned the Skaw and swung her into the 
Skage-Rack . . . And the wind held . . . 

And once out of there, they pointed her nose 
norVest by nor’ as though Iceland were only 
a buoy in a yacht-race . . . And the wind held 
. . . The summer nights of the North were on 
them, the unearthly beauty of the light . . . 
There was no world . . . They were sailing on 
the Milky Way . . . Only the gurgle of the 
water at the bows, the whush of the wake beneath 
the counter, held them as by a thin umbilical cord 
to the world of men . . . The whap-whap-whap 
of the cordage . . . The tin gWtn gating of the 
helmsman’s bell . . . The cry for’a’d: “The 
lights are burning bright, sir!” . . . 


§ 13 

The gaunt Shetlands were on their starboard 
beam now, the dun Orkneys off the port bow. 
Sumburgh Head dropped away, and they headed 
due west . . . The waves were laughing, the sun 
rose in a great explosion abaft of them . . . 
The world was a very small place . . . The uni- 
verse so large ... At dawn the gulls chattered 


THE BOLD FENIAN MEN 


341 


and whined, and screamed until they felt im- 
mense loneliness . . . One seemed to be intrud- 
ing in a world of white feathers and cold inimical 
eyes, and complaints in a language one could not 
understand ... So lonely ... so undefiled 
. . . the home of the great whale . . . Here 
was the world as God first made it . . . clean 
and beautiful and absolute . . . Up here steam 
engines seemed ridiculous toys . . . .> In winter 
the sleek seal and the great white bear . . . And 
the great crying of the gulls . . . One thought 
of Adelina Patti’s great singing and wondered 
did it matter a lot. 

And they swung sou’west by sou’ to leave the 
Hebrides to port. They were on the last leg 
of the voyage, and the wind still held . . . 

“O Shane, it ’s wonderful . . .” She had 
come on deck in her man’s clothing . . . She was 
so tall, so slim, her legs so long, it seemed some 
pleasant feminine fancy of hers, not a material 
adaptation of the life on board ship. “The 
wind will hold until we get there.” 

“I don’t like it,” Shane grumbled. 

“Why, Shane? Why don’t you like it?” 

“We ’re too lucky.” 

“It is n’t luck, Shane. It ’s the will of God.” 
“HmmI” 


342 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


‘‘Granya!” 

“Yes, Shane.” 

“I Ve just been thinking. Why could n’t you 
conspirators have chosen a better time of the 
year than August for landing your arms? 
There ’s only about two hours of night.” 

“Because, Shane, the arms must be ready for 
autumn, when the harvest is in. That ’s the 
best time for a revolution. And the arms must 
be distributed. And the men must drill a little. 
Now is our only time.” 

“Hmm.” 

“O Shane, I wish you would be a little enthu- 
siastic.” 

“Enthusiastic? At forty-nine!” 

“Are you forty-nine, Shane? You don’t seem 
thirty-nine. None could tell but for the little 
gray in vour hair . . . And Shane . . 

“Yes!” 

“I like your hair rumpled a little with the sea- 
air .. . much better than when it is sleek in 
Antrim . . . Shane, you don’t know how well 
you look on board ship.” 

“Ooh, be damned to that . . . Mr. Janseen, 
get them to lay aft, and see if you can’t get a 
little more out of that mizzen ... A little more 
pocket in the luff.” . . . 


THE BOLD FENIAN MEN 


343 


§ 14 

They passed the Butt of Lewis, sailing due 
sou’west . . . To port they left the Seven 
Hunters, changing the course to sou’west by sou’ 
. . . The Hebrides passed them like islands in a 
dream, purple, gleaming strangely in the sunlight, 
now a black shower whipping over them, now 
sunshine pouring in great floods . . . Lewis 
went by, and then Harris . . . North Uist where 
the winds blow so hard they have an old word: 
Is traugh fear na droiche air mhachair Uistibh: 
’T is a pity of the slut’s husband on the plains of 
Uist . . . You’ll be needing buttons on your 
coat there . . . They passed Rona of the Seals, 
and Benbecula . . . They passed South Uist 
and Eriskay . . . They passed the Ponboy Isles 
. . . The islands of the Gat they called them in 
Gaelic . . . Faintly they saw the mists of Hecla 
. . . heard the curlews . . . They saw fishing- 
boats with great brown sails . . . 

Honk-honk of wild ganders in the distance, 
and occasionally the chugh of a diving bird 

. . The wind blew from the nor’west . . . 
The foam snarled beneath the bows . . . 


344 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


“I don’t like it ... I don’t like it . . .” 

“Shane, it is wonderful . . . God is with us.” 

“Hunh . . .” He saw the weather leaches 
flick . . . “Don’t let her come up,” he roared at 
the helmsman. “Steer her, you Swede bastard 
. . . Where the hell did you ever steer before? 
On a canal?” 

“Shane!” 

“What is it, Granya?” 

“Your language, Shane!” 

“Listen, Granya ...I’m not playing a com- 
edy ... I ’m sailing a ship . . . that ’s on an 
errand I don’t like ... If you don’t like my 
language, get below . . .” 

“Sorry, Shane !” She said with a meek cour- 
tesy. She stayed . . . 

They passed Skerryvore . . . They passed 
Dhu Heartach, Colonsay, Islay of McCrimmin 
. . . Iristrahull was on the weather beam . . . 
They swung eastward . . . Irishowen Head 
showed off the port bow . . . On an August 
afternoon, they slipped into Lough Foyle . . . 


§ 15 


The soft luminosity of a summer night was 
in it . . . and a little moon, which Shane damned 


THE FOLD FENUN MEN 


345 


. . . Before them rose the outline of Done- 
gal . . . On each beam they could see faintly the 
outlines of the bay’s arms . . . The schooner 
moved under jibs and mizzen . . . From the bow 
was the splash of the lead . . . 

“By the mark, fine!” 

“Luff her a little, a little more . . . steady!” 

“Four fathoms, no bottom 1” 

“Keep her off a point!” 

“By the deep, four !” 

“How’s the bottom?” 

“Clean and sandy, sir!” 

“No bottom at three!” 

“Ready for’a’d to let go?” 

“All ready, sir!” 

“The mark three, no bottom!” 

“Lee— o! . . . Hold her!” 

The long swish of oars, the rattle of oar-locks 
. . . A voice rapping out: 

“Rest on the oars!” And then: “Schooner 
ahoy!” 

Shane’s heart sank. He gave no answer. 

“What ship is that?” The voice rang over 
the little bay . . . found a grotesque echo in 
some cliff . . . 

“Who are you?” 

“His Majesty’s coast-guards. Stand by. 
Coming aboard. Lay on your oars, men ! 


346 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


And then ... a long instant . . . “Toss 
oars!” 

“Bring her into the wind!” Shane ordered . . . 

A scramble alongside, and some one was com- 
ing over the waist rail ... A firm step on deck 
. . . Some one was smiling . . . 

“My name ’s Flannagan, Lieutenant Flanna- 
gan . . . Sorry, Mr. Campbell, we can’t let you 
land . . . your cargo or your passenger . . .” 

“I don’t understand.” 

“Well, sir, we know what your cargo is, and 
my orders are not to let you land. And I was 
to tell you, sir, that you could n’t land anywhere.” 

“By God 1 I knew it would end like this . . . 
Are we under arrest?” 

“No, sir . . . You are just not to land. I ’m 
sorry, sir, but . . . Orders 1” 

“Then what the blazes am I going to do?” 

“Jove, I don’t know. Can’t you bring the 
cargo back where you got it?” 

“I suppose I ’ll have to do that. But my pas- 
senger ... I can put her ashore.” 

“I ’m sorry, sir. But your passenger can’t go 
ashore, anywhere, any time, in her Majesty’s 
dominions.” 

“Hmm!” 

He heard her quick step on the companionway. 


THE BOLD FENIAN MEN 


347 


“Shane.’’ 

“Shane, are you there?” 

“Shane, Shane, what’s wrong?” She came 
into the shrouded light of the binnacle. “Shane, 
who — who is this?” 

“My name ’s Flannagan, Miss O’Malley — 
royal navy — I ’m sorry; you can’t land.” 

‘What does it mean, Shane?” 

“You ’re beaten, Granya.” 

“Are we prisoners?” 

“No, Miss O’Malley, just you can’t land. 
And I ’m very distressed to tell you . . . You 
may not land anywhere, any time, in her Majesty’s 
dominions.” 

“That does n’t shut out Mr. Campbell, does 
it?” 

“I ’ve no orders against him. Miss O’Malley, 
barring his landing his cargo or you . . .” 

She laid her hand on Shane’s arm . . . 

“I ’m sorry, Shane ...I’m very sorry, my 
dear — dear friend ... You were so good . . . 
There are few — would have sacrificed their time 
and profession, and everything — to help a woman 
on a wild-goose ideal I — like mine was . . . So 
please forgive me!” 

“There ’s nothing to forgive, Granya . . .” 

“I want to do this . . .” she leaned forward 


348 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


and kissed him . . . The lieutenant turned away. 
“And now good-by.’’ 

“Why good-by? I ’m not going ashore. I ’ll 
stick.” 

“Dear Shane, you would.” She caught his 
hand, pressed, dropped it. Her voice rang out: 
“But I ’m going ashore . . .” She had swung 
over the taffrail and dropped into the water with 
the soft splash of a fish . . . 

“My God . . .!” Shane swore with rage. 
“Wait. I ’ll get her. Will you stand by with 
your boat?” 

“Right- 0 1” Flannagan answered cheerily. 

Shane kicked off his shoes, slipped out of his 
coat . . . “This damned woman!” he thought 
as he dropped astern, came out, began to cast 
for direction like an otter-hound . . . He heard 
her soft rhythmical strokes ahead . . . He tore 
after her . . . caught up . . . reached her 
shoulder . . . 

“Come back, Granya!” 

“No, Shane.” 

He had decided, once he reached her, to turn 
her back by force, but the strange gentle voice re- 
strained him. All this matter of Ireland, all 
this expedition of opera bouffe, took on again a 
strange dimension when she spoke . . . All the 


THE BOLD FENIAN MEN 


349 


time he had been foolish, he knew, and, worse, 
looked like a fool, but some strange magic of her 
voice made it seem natural . . . the naive brave 
gestures . . . One levitated above common 
ground . . . Even this moon-madness did not 
seem trivial and a thing for laughter ... A dig- 
nity of ancient stories was on it . . . The blue 
Irish hills, soft as down, the little moon, and the 
tide hurrying out of the lough to the great Atlan- 
tic ... A wrench of the will and he gripped 
her shoulder: 

“Shane, please don’t!” 

“You ’re coming back, Granya.” 

“I ’m not, Shane, and please don’t hold me. 
I ’m getting weak.” 

“You ’ll never make it, Granya. And if you 
did, where would you go on the Donegal hills?” 

“I don’t know, Shane. But please let me go, 
I implore you . . . Even if I do go down . . . 
Don’t you see? There is nothing for me but 
this, or death . . . My life . . . O Shane, let 
me go!” 

“Quiet, Granya !” He caught her wrist. 

“Please, Shane. Please. I pray of you . . .” 
She began to twist . . . “O Shane, you hurt.” 

“Quiet, Granya. Boat — o!” 

The lantern of the coast-guards’ cutter came 


350 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


nearer . . . The measured swish of the oars 
. . . the creak . . . She began to struggle 
fiercely . . . 

“Granya, if you don’t keep quiet, I ’ll have to 
hit you . . 

“O Shane!” she whimpered . . . 

“All right. Get her on board. Steady, there. 
Trim a little. Good!” Flannagan and a great 
bearded coast-guard had her .... The silence 
was broken with her little sobs .... He helped 
her over the waist of the schooner . . . 

“Go below, Granya, and get into some dry 
clothes ,. . . Mr. Flannagan, I ’ll take the boat 
back to St. Petersburg ... If Miss O’Malley 
does n’t land neither do I. May I send a letter 
ashore? It’s only about business, and the place 
in the glens . . .” 

“I ’ll take it and have it sent.” 

“Another thing; we want to get some pro- 
Tisions and water.” 

“Of course, sir . . . That ’s all right.” 

“Do you think one of the country girls could 
be persuaded to come on board as Miss O’Mal- 
ley’s maid?” 

“I think so. We ’ll ask the local priest.” 

“Oh, yes, the priest . . . Another thing: do 
you think you could dig out a parson around here 
somewhere and bring him on board?” 


THE BOLD FENIAN MEN 


351 


“O Shane, what do you want that for?” 
She had n’t gone below, but waited in the com- 
panionway. 

“You don’t think you’re going wandering 
around with me, casually, like this?” 

“But it ’s only to St. Petersburg, Shane I” 
“And then where do you go? What do you 
do?” 

don’t know.” 

“Better get the parson, Mr. Flannagan.” 

“Oh, but Shane — ” she protested. 

“Go below, Granya, and get those wet things 
off . . . And get into women’s clothes . . . 
Granya !” 

“Yes, Shane . . . Very well, Shane . . .” 




PART SEVEN 


THE KINGDOM AND THE POWER 
AND THE GLORY 



THE KINGDOM AND THE POWER AND 
THE GLORY 

§ I 

H e felt a little ashamed, a little shy, what 
with his gray hairs, his paternity, that 
there should still be a thrill in his heart, a sense 
of flight in him. At fifty-eight to feel like a 
schoolboy going home, it seemed — well, not in- 
decent, indecorous. This thing of returning to 
Antrim had been a matter of pure reason, and 
then suddenly his heart had spread forgotten 
wings. 

Without, the sound of Broadway had changed 
subtly, with the coming of the September dusk. 
The quick-pacing people had given way to the 
clop-clop-clop of hansom-cabs, and the tram- 
cars with their tired horses came less frequently 
now. One felt that a giant had been at work all 
day, and was now stretching himself, not lazily, 
but a little relaxingly. Soon the great lamps 
would flare, and the crowds would be going to 
the playhouses : to Tony Pastor’s to see the new 
play, “Dreams,” or to Harrigan & Hart’s to see 
355 


356 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


“Investigation,” or tp Mr. Bartley Campbell’s 
latest, “Separation,” at the Grand Opera-house. 
He would miss all this in Antrim, but Antrim 
called him . . . Antrim, our mother . . . 

And three months ago he had never thought 
this possible. He had drilled himself into a 
mature philosophy, saying: “It doesn’t matter 
that I never see Ireland again. I am happy here 
with Granya and young Alan and Robin Beg, 
little Robin. All the folks are kindly and the 
country is a great country, and when my time 
comes to die there are sweet little places on Long 
Island where they can lay me within sound of 
the sea, and the gentle snow will come and cover 
me in winter and in summer somewhere about me 
the dogwood will blow, and the very green grass 
come. And perhaps some young children will 
come and play around my grave, and I shall hear 
their little gurgling laughter, sweet as the voices 
of pigeons . . . And one day Granya will come 
. . . Nothing is more certain than that, that 
Granya will come . . .” 

But all the philosophy in the world could not 
shut from his ears the little piping of Antrim. 
He would say: “ ’T is little thought I gave to 
Antrim and I a young man ! And what is a town 
or so to me, who have seen all great cities ?” And 
again he said: “Didn’t you give up Antrim 


KINGDOM AND POWER AND GLORY 357 


gladly when you got Granya ? Was n’t she worth 
a hundred Antrims?” And his heart and mind 
answered: “Yes, a thousand Antrims I” But, a 
very .queer thing, the little haunting melody of 
the glens would not be stilled. 

And it came to him thus: I am no longer a 
young man. For all I look forty-five, as they 
tell me, yet I am fifty-eight. The life of the 
body is over now. That had passed, as a mood 
passes- And the mind is fixed. In what remains 
of life to me, I must think, divine, weigh. One 
prepares . . . And thoughts must not be dis- 
turbed. To grow old in a city that is ever young, 
that is in its twenties itself as it were — it makes 
an old man cold and afraid. Old buildings he has 
known to go down, old streets are obliterated. 
It is a very terrible thing to be lonely when old, 
and to feel everything passes, dies . . . All I 
have loved is thrown away, is of no use . . . 
Everything old is in the way, and I am old . . . 
The hawk-eyed commercial men go about so 
that the streets are filled with them . . . And 
all the sweet things that were said in Galilee seem 
only a casual all-but-forgotten melody, and no 
revelation . . . And then comes a horrible mem- 
ory of stark Ecclesiastes: “The dead know not 
anything, neither have they any more a reward; 
ior the memory of them is forgotten. Also their 


358 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


love, and their hatred, and their envy, is now 
perished; neither have they any more a portion 
for ever in any thing that is done under the sun.” 
And old men remember the sorrowful things of 
their life, and how little happiness measured up 
to the misery and toil of life, and they had hoped 
. . , But there were the words of the preacher: 
“Neither have they any more a reward” .• . . 
And secretly and quietly old men weep . . . 

But to grow old with the mountains and the 
eternal sea, and to watch the delicate bells of the 
heather, to know the quiet companionship of 
dogs — there is a revelation in it. No, nothing 
dies. And the moon rises and the mountains 
nod: Yes, I remember you when you were a 
schoolboy, running to be on time. And the green 
waves make a pleasant laughter: We are here. 
When you arise in the morning you may be cer- 
tain we are here. The friends of one’s young 
days die, scatter, are lost. But the mountains 
and the water are friends forever. One can 
speak to them. One can speak to ancient trees. 
And the leaves rustle . . . 

And Granya had sensed it . . . He might have 
known she would. Conceal it as he might try, 
a mysterious telepathy was between them . . . 
She knew . . . 

It was she who had gone to the British embassy 


KINGDOM AND POWER AND GLORY 359 


in Washington, telling Shane nothing. He had 
heard of it afterward. She had n’t pleaded or 
given any promises. She had just flared in to 
the startled envoy. 

“I wish to go back to Ireland.” 

“Unfortunately, the privy council had the mat- 
ter of Miss O'Malley — ” 

“I am not Miss O’Malley. I am Shane Camp- 
bell’s wife.” 

“But you are a dangerous enemy to the em- 
pire I” 

“Am I? I had forgotten completely about 
the empire.” 

“There was a little matter of a shipload of 
rifles — ” 

“And now it is a matter of a husband and two 
children.” 

“Sure, Miss O’Malley?” 

“I am not Miss O’Malley. I am Shane Camp- 
bell’s wife. And I ’m absolutely sure.” 

It had been so easy after all. 

And now when it was true, it was hard to credit. 
Within two weeks the ship would swing to port 
around Donegal, and they would enter the bay 
they had entered seven years ago, seven years 
and a month ago, to be exact. He wondered 
whether it would be a foggy morning, or a great 
golden afternoon. It was a pity it had to be on 


36 o 


THE fVIND BLOWETH 


board a steamship, though. He would liefer 
have luffed in on board a boat of his own, a great 
suit of snowy canvas drawing joyously the Irish 
wind. 


§ 2 

Upstairs he could hear and distinguish the feet 
in the nursery. There was the patter of little 
Alan’s feet, and the stumble of Robin Beg’s. 
There was the shuffle of the nurse-maid, and the 
firm light tread of Granya. Soon she would come 
down, after the children were safely to bed, and 
little Alan’s prayers were heard. And they 
would go out to dinner in New York for the last 
time. It was a little pang to leave New York 
. . . Ah, but Antrim ! 

He picked up his paper and read while wait- 
ing .. . It was queer how he could hardly fo- 
cus his attention on it, impatient for her as a 
schoolboy for his first love . . . Always when 
she entered a room came beauty . . . Well, 
she would come . . . The type took form be- 
neath his eyes . . . The races at Sheepshead 
Bay: Tom Martin had captured the Twin City 
Handicap ... In Ireland they would go to the 


KINGDOM AND POWER AND GLORY 361 


Curragh and Baldoyle to see the horses, and the 
Dublin horse-show, and the hunts on a frosty 
morning . . . What was this? Heavy bets laid 
that Cleveland would be next President The 
Irish would n’t like that. They were all for 
Blaine. It was only the other night that Mrs. 
Delia Parnell, Parnell’s mother, had attended the 
great Irish rally in the Academy of Music . . . 
That was a mistake, mixing up Irish politics with 
American statesmanship. There would be folk 
to resent that, and rightly, too . . . Too much 
talk of dynamite, and that horrible thing in Phoe- 
nix Park . . . What an involved, emotional affair 
all this Irish matter was! . . . To understand 
Ireland one must understand Irishmen, that either 
hatred or love rule them . . . Parnell, though, 
looked hopeful. No emotion, all brains and 
will . . . He could not be side-tracked by pre- 
ferment, or religion, or love for women. There 
was a man whose head was firm on his shoul- 
ders; he would never be wrecked . . . Ah, here 
was something Granya would be glad to hear: 
Margaret Mather got a splendid reception in 
Pittsburg with her Lady Macbeth . . . Whew ! 
Cholera at Naples. That was serious! Not an 
over-clean people, the Italians ... Li Hung 
Chang degraded of his titles. Who the blazes 
was Li Hung Chang anyway, and what titles did 


362 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


he have? . . . And Major Kitchener disperses 
the Berber tribes . . . How unimportant! Ah, 
here was something. Great gambling reported 
on the City of Rome, Ah, there was what he al- 
ways contended, that steam would ruin everything. 
The great sea a resort for gamblers! In the 
old days, in sail, when a captain was a captain, 
he ’d have had none of that on board clean tim- 
bers . . . He was a little afraid the world was 
going to the dogs ! 

Och ! Was that woman never coming down at 
all, at all? 

He smiled to himself at how the Ulster speech 
came back to him at the thought of Ulster . . . 
He turned to the paper with an effort of will 
. . . An Indian outbreak feared in western Mon- 
tana . . . Stanley going to Egypt . . . Police- 
man beaten up in Brooklyn; a tough place, 
Brooklyn! . . . American schooner arrested by 
Russian corvette for selling rum to Bering Strait 
natives: a very strict modern people, the Rus- 
sians . . . Picnics on Staten Island blamed for 
ruin of young girls . . . And Bismarck and the 
pope still sparring. Did that poor German 
think he could ever get the better of the subtle 
Romans . . .. ? Och, what was keeping that 
woman? 

The light had become so dim that he could 


KINGDOM AND POPFER AND GLORY 363 


hardly read. The tempo without quickened. 
People were hurrying now, on their way to the 
restaurants for the evening meal. From the 
restaurants to the theater. Home to sleep. 
And a new day with the old work facing them. 
There was a fascination, a hypnosis to New 
York. He felt a pang at leaving it. It had 
been very friendly to him. And he' would never 
see it again . . . Ah, but he would remember 
It! 


§ 3 

It came to him with a sense of revelation 
that all his life he had been looking forward: 
always the new thing. And now he would be 
looking back. Always before guessing. Look- 
ing back now, knowing, or not quite knowing, but 
having before him material from which to draw 
wisdom, truth. All his life it seemed he had 
been gathering something. Now was the time 
to sort it, make it . . . And then, what was he to 
do with whatever he had made? Toward what 
end? The paper he had in his hands dropped 
to his knees. His eyes fixed on the windows 
where the lights of the city began to shine, saw 


364 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


a haze, saw nothing. His ears, listening to the 
clop-clop-clop of the hansoms, heard only rhythm, 
then a faint harmony, then nothing . . . Him- 
self, within him, seemed to see old scenes, to be 
in old scenes. The little boy going down to the 
sea in ships, seeking an island he had seen in a 
mirage ... a mood of w'onder . . . There 
were feet, there was the world. Every tree was 
an emerald miracle, every house a mystery, all 
people were riddles . . . Come, little boy, come 
and look! The instinct of the salmon for the 
sea. The river where he was spawned hurries to 
the sea, and his instinct is to go with it, not against 
it ... It deepens and broadens, and ahead is 
always a clearer pool, a more shadowy rock, a 
softer w'ater-fern. It is pleasant to swim under 
the sallow-branches, and rapids whip . . . And 
there is the lull of an estuary, and the chush-chush 
of little waves, and he is in the sea . . . And 
now he must lay his own course . . . The lure 
of the river has brought him so far. 

And Shane thought: I was born a salmon in 
a river. The stupid pretty trout remained in the 
river, and the secretive eels . . . And the perch 
and the roach and the ponderous bream, and the 
pike that is long of snout, they remained by the 
grassy waters . . . But those that are born sal- 
mon must go down to the sea . . . 


KINGDOM AND POWER AND GLORY 365 


A little shadow came into his face, and his 
breath was caught sharp. He was remembering 
Moyra, the wife he had, and he no older than a 
boy . . . Like some strange fascination, ugly 
dream that came to him . . . And queerly 
enough, the picture of Moyra’s mother, the old 
wife of Louth, was clearer in his mind than his 
wife . . . Moyra was like some troubled cloud, 
a thing that blotted out sunshine for a while, 
through no fault of its own, but the mother was 
sinister. An old woman keening, and the breath 
of whisky on her, and her eyes sobering in a bitter 
greed . . . Why should Moyra have died? 
Fate : the act of God : whatever you care to 
call it. Why should he have been dragged into 
it, Shane wondered. If he had n’t, what would 
have happened? He didn’t know. But he 
knew this, that in the marriage to Moyra he had 
been gripped by the shoulder, and looked in the 
eyes, and a voice had said: “Wait. All is not 
wonder and mystery. Life is not a child’s toy. 
You must learn.” 

Poor Moyra, he could hardly remember any- 
thing but her pleading, half-inimical eyes, her 
mouth that twisted easily to anger, her shame 
that her hands and feet were uncouth. And now 
she had loved him. And now hated him. He 
remembered one May evening when suddenly she 


366 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


had caught his hand and kissed it, and pressed it 
to her heart. And later that night she had cursed 
bitterly at him, saying black was the day she had 
set eyes on him, and black the day she married 
him, and her face was twisted into agonized ugli- 
ness. And when he went to sea a few days later 
he had found a symbol of her religion, an Agnus 
Dei, sewed into his coat to protect him against the 
terrors of the deep waters. 

And she had died, poor tortured Moyra, sud- 
denly. Why? Had What had fashioned her 
thought: That’s not rightly done? No. 
That’s poor. Wait. I’ll do it over . . . 

Ah, well, God give her peace, wherever she 
wandered I How many years had it taken to get 
over, not her death, but their being married? 
A long time. Seven bitter years. He might 
have turned into a bitter, fierce old man, hating 
all things. The whole thing had been like a cru- 
elty to a happy wondering child. And he had 
closed his heart, resentful, afraid . . . And then 
had come Glaire-Anne. 

Once he had been a child with wondering gray 
eyes, and life had made him blind as a mole, se- 
cretive as a badger, timid of the world as the owl 
is timid of daylight. The shock of Claire-Anne, 
and he was cognizant of great enveloping cur- 
rents of life. Wonder he had known, and bitter- 


KINGDOM AND POWER AND GLORY 367 


ness he had known, but the immense forces that 
wind the stars as a clock is wound he had not 
known . . . And with Claire-Anne they had 
burst about him like thunder. They had played 
around him as the corposant flickers around the 
mast-head of a ship . . . Poor Claire-Anne I 
The miracle of her. She was like some flowering 
bush in an arctic waste . . . Her wonderful 
scared eyes, her tortured self ... It was a very 
strange thing that her end did not bother him 
... A gesture of youth, that sudden snap of the 
wrist with the poor dead prince’s dagger . . . 
He had been very honest about it, and it did not 
bother him, any more than it would have been on 
his conscience to have shot a crippled horse . . . 
Once it had seemed to him unnecessarily his- 
trionic, but now he knew it was merciful . . . 
Her spirit had gone too far ever to return to 
normal life . . . 

But the little woman of the East, that did 
bother him. In boyhood he had known the 
wonder of life. In youth he had known there 
existed sordid tragedy. In young manhood pas- 
sion had crashed like lightning . . . And then he 
had thought he knew all. He had considered 
himself the master of life and said: “I will do 
such and such a thing and be happy. Enjoy this, 
because I know how to enjoy it. To the wise 


368 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


man, all is a pleasant hedonism.’’ It struck him 
at the time how terribly foolish and piteous great 
men were . . . Jesus dead on a crucifix; Socrates 
and the hemlock bowl; the earnest Paul beheaded 
at Rome ... A little wisdom, a little callous- 
ness would have avoided all this . . . How satis- 
fied he was, how damned petty! His little bour- 
geois life, his harem of one pretty girl, his nice 
ship . . . smug as a shop-keeper . . . and then 
life, fate, whatever you call it, had tripped him 
up, abashed, beaten, through the medium of a 
mountebank wrestler whom he had conquered in 
a street brawl . . . 

And after seven years of blackness and des- 
pair. The long reach to Buenos Aires, and the 
querulous sea-birds mocking him: On the land 
is desolation and pettiness and disappointment 
. . . And what is there on the sea? The great 
whale is dying; the monster who ranged the deep 
must go because men must have oil to cast up 
their accounts by the light of it, and women must 
have whalebone for stays . . . The sleek seal 
with brown gentle eyes must die that harlots shall 
wear furs . . . And there never was a Neptune 
or a Mannanan mac Lir . . . There were only 
stories from a foolish old book . . . The sun 
shines for a moment on the green waters, and 
your heart rises . . . But remember the black- 


KINGDOM AND POWER AND GLORY 369 


ness of the typhoon, and how the cold left-hand 
wind rages round the Horn . . . And the coral 
islands have great reefs like knives, and the 
golden tropics lure to black lethal snakes . . . 
Fool! Fool! We have ranged the clouds, and 
there is no good-willing God . . . There is only 
coldness and malignant things ... So cried the 
querulous sea voices, and they tempted him: “All 
you have known is desolation and vanity. Better 
to have died a boy while the meadows they were 
green . . . All before you is emptiness,” they 
mocked. And they came nearer: “Behold, the 
night is black, the ocean is of great depth, im- 
measurable, the ship plows onward under a quar- 
tering breeze. A little step, a little step lee- 
ward, a vault over the taffrail as over a little 
ditch, and there will be peace and rest. Look 
at the water flow past. No problems there . . . 
God! how close he had been to it, in the seven 
black years, the long voyage from Liverpool, 
and the sordid town at the end . . . How close ! 
And then Alan Bonn, God rest him! had died, 
and he had gone back to Ireland, and met Granya, 
and been foolish as a boy in his teens. A ship- 
load of rifles to free Ireland ! What a damned 
fool he had felt when they had simply shooed 
him away ! 

He thought to himself with a little smile that 


370 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


out of the wisdom of his life had always come sor- 
row, and out of his foolishness had come joy 
. . . Granya, and peace, and meaning to his 
life ... A very foolish thing it had been, that 
expedition . . . But he would n’t have it laughed 
at, nor laugh at it himself . . . Over the mists of 
the past the thing took glamour . . . He had 
been more moved than he had allowed himself to 
believe then. And here in his New York draw- 
ing-room, remembering the old heroic-comic ges- 
ture, and remembering tragedies of material that 
were glorification of spirit, he thought for an 
instant he had solved the mystery of Ireland, 
. . . Ireland was a drug . . . Out of the gray 
sweeping stones, and the bogs of red moss and 
purple water, and from the proud brooding moun- 
tains, and the fields green as a green banner, there 
exhaled some subtle thing that made men lose 
sense of worldly proportion ... It was in their 
mothers’ milk, a subtle poison. It crept into 
their veins, and though they might leave Ireland, 
yet for generations would it persist ... It gave 
them the gift of laughter, and contempt for phys- 
ical pain, and an egregious sensitiveness ... So 
that the world wondered . . . their wars were 
merry wars, and their poetry sobbed, like a be- 
reaved woman . . . They threw their lives away 
recklessly, and a phrase meant much to them . . . 


KINGDOM AND POWER AND GLORY 371 


Perhaps they knew that action counted nothing, 
and emotion all . . . Ah, there he was losing 
himself! 

At any rate, Ulster Scot though he was, he 
did n’t regret it — apart even from its bringing 
him Granya. Perhaps at the news of it, some 
hard English official might feel a twitch at his 
heart-strings, and remembering that the Irish 
were as little children, be kind to some reprobate 
Celt . . . An action had so many antennae. One 
never knew where its effects stopped, if ever . . . 

A foolish thing that had brought him joy 
where wisdom brought him sorrow! Strange. 
Until then he had been existent, sentient, but 
never until then alive. Wonder, disillusionment, 
passion, tragedy, despair. In each of these 
moods he had had a glimpse, now and then, of 
an immense universal design, as a bird may have 
it, and its throat quivering with song, or as a 
salmon may have it, and he flinging himself tre- 
mendously over a weir. He knew it, as a tree 
knows when the gentle rains of April come. 
But that he existed, as an entity apart from trees, 
from salmon, and from birds, he had not known 
until Granya, broken, had crept weeping into 
his arms . . . 

“Give me strength, Shane, for God’s sake. 
Give me strength, or I die!” 


372 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


And somewhere, out of something, some eso- 
teric, where he had plucked strength and given it 
to her, and he knew it was n’t from his body, or 
from his mind, or his spirit even, he had given 
it He had, from some tremendous storehouse, 
got life for her, got peace, so that she fluttered 
like a pigeon and sighed and grew calm . . . 
And in that moment he knew he was alive. 

He tried to figure it to himself in terms of 
concrete things, and he said: “If I were a 
racing-boat now, I would decide how to make 
a certain buoy, and my mind would figure how 
to get there, what tack to make, the exact moment 
of breaking out the spinnaker rounding the mark. 
Perhaps my mind is nothing, something I use just 
now, as I use my body. For the hand on the 
rudder is not I. It is something I am using to 
hold that rudder. As I might lash it with a rope, 
if I were so minded. And my eyes are just 
something I use. They are just like the indi- 
cators on the stays; they and the indicators are 
one, to tell me how the wind shifts. All that is 
not I. It is something I use. Perhaps even my 
mind is something I use, as I use my hands. 
But somewhere, somewhere within me, is I.” 

And a great sense of exaltation and wonder 
and dignity swept through every fiber of him at 
the thought of this: new-born he was, clean as 


KINGDOM AND POWER AND GLORY 373 


a trout, naked as a knife, strong as the sea. He 
was one of the lords of the kindly trees, masters 
of the pretty flowers: the little animals of God 
were given him, it being known he would not 
abuse the gift . . . And though lightning should 
strike him yet he would not die, but put off his 
body like a rent garment . . . And though he 
were to meet the savage bear in the forest, and 
have no means of conquering it, yet were he to be- 
come aware of this entity of life in him, he would 
smile at the thought of physical danger, and the 
great furry thing would recognize that dignity 
and be abashed . . . And there was no more 
wonder, or mystery, or fear, only beauty . . . 
The moon was not any more a mystery, but a 
place to be trodden one day, were his place to be 
there . . . And the furthest star was no further 
than the further island on terrestrial seas; one 
day he would reach that star, somehow, as now 
he could the furthest island with head and hand 
. . . Though death should smite his body he 
would not die. 


S 4 

A strange thing was this, that Granya had al- 
ways known this life. It was so certain to her 


374 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


that it was no more a wonder than rain is, or 
sunshine, or the rising of the moon . . . 

He had spoken of it to her one evening in the 
dusk. She had smiled, her grave beautiful smile. 

“Of course I know, Shane. I always knew.’* 

“But how did you know, Granya?” 

“I think,” she said, “I think all good women 
know, Shane. Men are so complete, so welded. 
Mind and body seem to be themselves; the body 
and mind function so that one does n’t see that 
there is anything within that directs them. They 
are compact. But a woman is diffuse, Shane. 
Her mind is not a man’s mind; it is a thing she 
can use when she wants to and then forget . . . 
When women sit and think, you know, they 
are n’t thinking. They are feeling, Shane. It 
comes like a little wind. There may be a place 
by the sea-shore, sparse heather and sandy dunes, 
and the little waves come chiming, and the cur- 
lew calls. And you sit. And a very strange 
peace comes to you, so that in a low soft voice 
you sing a verse of song ... Or it may come 
on the cold winds of winter, through the ascetic 
trees . . . But women are always cognizant of 
God . . . Even bad women, Shane, who mistake 
the Unknown God for the true . . . And a 
woman is very much apart from her body. It 


KINGDOM AND POWER AND GLORY 375 


is just a nuisance at times, or at times a thing of 
beauty, or at times a thing one expresses some- 
thing with, something that is too deep for words, 
as with a violin. And to some it is a curse . . . 
But a body is always apart from one, and a mind 
is, too . . . Shane, you have seen very beautiful 
old women . . . Women with a beauty that is 
like a flame that does not burn, that have a light 
within them somewhere . . . that is not of the 
mind or of the body . . . that is of these things 
worn thin so that they themselves show . . . 
See, heart?” 

“But Granya, why must a man find out, and a 
woman know?” 

“Shane of my heart, because it is necessary 
to women that they may live. A man can live 
without knowing God, as blind men live without 
ever seeing the moon. For they have minds, 
Shane, pursuits — the amassing of money, the 
little light of fame, that is only a vanity — not 
real . . . But Shane, no matter how hard a man 
has to work, a woman has more terrible things 
. . . There is no man on earth can understand 
the bearing of children . . . And there is no 
man, were he to think of it, try to know, but 
would rather die than submit to what he thinks 
that terror . . . And yet, Shane, it is not so 


376 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


much . . . After a little agony, when one goes 
into the dark, olive valley, and strength seems 
to go from you in great waves, until you are 
robbed of strength as a man may be robbed of 
blood . . . Then one goes out of one’s self and 
gets it . . . The beauty in the face of young 
mothers, of brides. That is not body or mind, 
Shane, that is their selves. This was the Eleu- 
sinian mystery, Shane, that women know that 
God lives, and that they cannot die . . . 

“See, Shane, the stars are out. The dew is 
falling. And on the morrow you must be afoot 
early. Shall we go in?” 

Once, before Alan Oge was born, a wave of 
panic swept over him, and he caught her hand and 
looked at her : 

“What is it, Shane?” 

“If — if you should die — ” 

“I shall not die, Shane. I know. I shall not 
die.” 

“But how do you know?” 

“I just know, Shane. That ’s all.” 

“O Granya, it seems very terrible, that one 
day one of us should die.” 

“Dear Shane, it is not very terrible. If I 
should die, my heart, I should know I would not 


KINGDOM AND POWER AND GLORY 377 


have long to wait. And I should be with you, 
Shane, even dead, when I could . . . And after 
days of trouble suddenly one morning you would 
know you had had a good night’s sleep, and that 
would be because I had come to you in the night 
and had kissed you, and laid a dim hand on you 
. . . And sometimes, in difficulties, you would 
feel a sudden rush of strength, and that would be 
because I was beside you . . . dear heart, dear 
Shane.” 

“I am so much older, Granya. I shall be the 
first to die.” 

“If you are the first to go, Shane, I shall be 
like some wife of the Crusades, of an old time 
when a dream meant more than a pocketful of 
money . . . and men were glad to go, and women 
glad to send them. I shall sit by my fire, and 
when you come I shall talk to you in my heart 
. . . saying little foolish sweet things . . . And 
when I need you, I shall go out into the soft 
night, and call, and you will hear my voice in the 
Milky Way . . . and God will let you come 
. . . my darling . . .” 

“Granya !” 

“And maybe — sweet, sweet thought — He will 
let us go together . . .” 


378 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


§5 

Here was a great fact, that he lived, but with 
the fact came a problem: Why? If within him 
there existed this sentient, supple, strong thing, 
and it did exist, for what end was it designed? 
It was not enough to have faith, to know 
one lived to save one’s soul . . . That was 
selfish, and selfishness was an unpardonable 
thing, the sin against the Holy Spirit. That 
has ordained there should be one occult purpose 
. . . No, everything had a reason . . . The 
sheltering trees, the ocean from whose womb 
came the great clouds that nurtured the green 
grass : the winds that were like gigantic brooms. 
The wise and the good labored, and never 
shirked . . . Each man must give according to 
his station, the strong man of strength, the wise 
one of wisdom; the one who knew beauty must 
give it somehow, not huddle it like a miser’s hoard 
. . . All men must work; that was as natural 
an instinct as the law that men must eat : and work 
did not mean grinding, but justifying one’s ex- 
istence fully . . . None may hold back, for that 
h ignoble, and all that is ignoble dies, dies and 


KINGDOM AND POWER AND GLORY 379 


is used again .... The murderer’s dead body 
may nurture a green bay-tree, such beautiful econ* 
omy nature has . . . And it seemed to him that 
the souls of dark men were used, too, but used as 
negations, and that was death . . . Perhaps 
they provided the sinister thunderstorms, the 
terrible typhoon, the cold polar breezes, the 
storms off the Horn . . . They might be the 
counterpoint of nature’s harmony . . . But this 
was going past knowledge, and past knowledge 
of heart and head one must not go . . . But of 
one thing he was certain; all that is ignoble 
dies . . . 

He had always known from the time he was a 
young boy that man must do something ... It 
was not sufficient to make a little money and sit 
down and spend it, as a dog finds a bone and 
gnaws it, or buries it, in a solitary place . . . 
For a long time he had thought it sufficient to do 
the little commerce of the world . . . But that 
was not sufficient ... In Buenos Aires he had 
felt ridiculous, as a giant might feel ridiculous 
carrying little stones for the making of a grocer’s 
house . . . Ashamed, a little resentful! He 
was like a dumb paralytic with flaming words in 
his heart and brain, and he could not write them, 
not even speak them aloud . . . 

But all his life this had worried him, the get- 


3^0 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


ting of work to do. And when he came to 
America with Granya he had come with great 
plans. Ships and ship-building were the only 
things he knew, and he had thought with others 
that the great clipper days might be revived. 
Iron steamships were grasping the swift com- 
merce of the world, but there were errands great 
wooden ships under skysails might yet be supreme 
in, the grain trade of San Francisco, for instance. 
And it might be possible, so he had dreamed, that 
once more the great pre-war clippers should be 
the pride of the new idealistic commonwealth 
. . . and what had come from his hand? A 
half-dozen three-masted schooners, and not very 
good schooners either, being too long in the hull 
for strength . . . And nobody seemed to care 
. . . From Belfast and the Clyde, iron boats 
swarmed like flies . . . And people were im- 
patient . . . They did not care to wait if a ship 
were blown from her course . . . They wanted 
ships on time . . . People had laughed at him, 
calling him crazy, and saying he was trying to 
stem progress . . . And then they had done 
worse . . . They had smiled and said it was 
a hobby of his . . . knew it was no use. 
He quit . . . And Granya had been very tender. 

**You must n’t mind, Shane. It was very lovely 
of you to dream and act . . . But it is not in- 


KINGDOM AND POWER AND GLORY 381 


tended. Don’t take it to heart, dearest.” 

‘‘All my life, Granya, I have been trying to do 
something, and I always fail.” 

‘‘Dear Shane, you never fail. The success is 
in yourself, not outside of yourself. That is 
all.” 

“Ah, yes, Granya, but that is not enough. 
That seems so selfish. So many men have done 
so much for the world, and I have done nothing. 
Even the old charwoman on her knees scrubbing 
floors has done more. She has given her best, 
and her best has been useful.” 

“But, Shane, you must wait. Have patience.” 

“I am old, Granya, and have done nothing.” 

“Wait, Shane, wait. I am going to dim the 
light, and blur all these things around us, and tell 
you a secret thought has been deep in my heart 
for years. There will be we two just in the room 
— absolute. And come nearer the fire, dear 
Shane, where I can just see where your hand is, 
and put my hand on it when the thought makes 
me feel like a child in a great wood . . . 
Shane . . . 

“You know your charts, the> charts you use 
and you at sea, the charts of the heavens, where 
what stars we know are marked, the sun and the 
moon and Venus and Jupiter, and Sirius the dog* 
star, and Saturn, and the star you steer your 


382 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


ship by, the polar star . . . And all the con- 
stellations, the Milky Way, and the belt of Orion, 
and the Plow and the Great Bear and the great 
glory you see when you pass the line, the Southern 
Cross . . . and the little stars you have no 
names for, but mark them cn your chart 
with quaint Greek letters . . . Our little world 
is so little, so pathetically little in this immensity 
... It is as though we were living on the small- 
est of islands, like some of the islands you have 
known and you on board ship following the moon 
down the West — Saba, where the Dutch are in 
the Caribbean, or Grenada, the very little island 
. . . And on that island they know only vaguely 
that such great lands as Africa and Europe and 
Asia are . . . They don’t know it from experi- 
ence . . . But Peking of the bells exists, and 
stately Madrid, and Paris that is a blaze of light, 
and London where the fog rolls inland from the 
sea ... Heart of my heart, how terrible it is 
that cannot, will not see, understand . . . And 
they say: Well, we don’t see it. Here we were 
born and here we die . . . And they say: Show 
us somebody who has been there . . . They for- 
get how long is the journey and how a man may 
have affairs in the crowning cities . . . Dearest, 
I am losing myself, but I know. 

“And this is what I want to tell you, Shane, 


KINGDOM AND POWER AND GLORY 383 


that when you die — oh, such an ugly word that 
is, Shane, for the bud bursting into flower — when 
it is your time to leave here, Shane, there will be 
a place for you, not idleness at all . . . All the 
stars, Shane, the valleys of the moon . . . 
There is work, Shane dear. Nothing is perfect, 
else there should be no reason for life. There 
must be stars that are old, as Dublin is old, and 
need vitality . . . There must be stars that are 
young and cruel, as this city is young and cruel, 
and need sweet strength . . . But I am very pre- 
sumptuous, Shane, to try and fathom the Great 
Master’s plan ... It is so colorless — oh, there 
is no word or symbol for it, Shane . . . But 
there is a Great Master and there is a Plan . . . 

“Heart, I tell you this, showing all my weak- 
ness of thought. You know it is the truth, too 
. . . But I tell you I know, so that our two selves’ 
knowing may make it a little stronger in us . . . 

“O Shane, I have no logic, but I know . . . 
And all the logicians in the world could not shame 
me to myself. All the reason in the world could 
not shake me. It would be artillery shot against 
the wind ... A star is a promise to me, 
Shane, and the wind a token, and the new moon 
just a pleasant occurrence, like the coming of 
spring ... 

“Shane, I know all this. I know it not for 


384 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


myself but for you ... I know three things : I 
know God lives, I know I love you, I know we 
shall not die ... I love you, Shane, and there is 
no shame on me telling it to you, for you are as 
my heart and I am as yours . . . When I see 
you at times there comes over me a sweetness 
from head to foot, and at times when I see you, 
a great dignity comes to me, because you love me, 
and your love is good ... I know there is a 
place in the coming days, and I know I shall be 
with you, wherever you go . . . 

“Here in this dim room, Shane, I know these 
things. Outside is the world, that is forgetting 
or that does n’t care, or will not see. Here in 
this dim room, with the red of the fire turning to 
a gentle yellow, I know it better than the people 
In churches, that kindly God lives, that I love 
you, Shane, and that we shall not die ...” 


§ 6 

It seemed to him that he must have been in 
reverie for ages, so much had he thought sitting 
there, so much felt ... He had been like a gull 
poised on the wing, and now he dropped gently 
to the calm waters , . . New York to-day, and 


KINGDOM AND POWER AND GLORY 385 


in two weeks Antrim, and then a rest . . . And 
then wider spaces than he had ever known, 
greater adventure ... A day would come when 
he would be called, as though some one had said: 
Shane Campbell I and then a gesture that made a 
horse stumble, or a flaw of wind that would turn 
over a boat . . . Click! . . . 

And it seemed to him that it would be not only 
sweeter, but wiser to die in Antrim . . . New 
York was no place for a man like him to die. 
For an old man, weary with life’s work, there 
would be gentle hands, and soft caring, and gui- 
dance for tired eyes . . . But for a man young 
spiritually, strong, there would be no coddling 
. . . He would be expected to jump forward at 
the call . . . And to go through the maze of 
smoke and dust, and the evil jungles of the air 
one sensed in a great city would be — waste of 
time and energy ... In Antrim when the call 
would come there would be the clear high air, 
the friendly glens, the great encouraging moun- 
tains, and the Moyle laughing in the moonlight: 
Don’t be embarrassed! Don’t be afraid! 

Above, he heard a door shut. There was no 
longer the patter of the boys’ feet on the floor, 
nor the drag of the maid’s shoes, but Granya’s 
firm light step he could sense somehow, and then 
came a little sound to him, that he knew was her 


386 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


dropping to her knees by Alan Beg’s bed, while 
she recited for him, taught him, the great prayer 
. . . Shane bowed his head in reverence . . . 
He could see the dim beauty of her face, her great 
trusting eyes, her sweet hands . . . Almost could 
he hear her voice, so close was she in his 
heart . . . 


§ 7 


“Our Father, ...” 

He could see the symbols that were in her 
mind, because they were in his too, the gentle 
pictures that translated the thought these words 
evoked: the great majestic figure with the strong 
hands and gentle eyes, the eyes that smiled when 
colts gamboled, or a rabbit flashed across the 
grass, that loved the beauty of the garden when 
He walked in it at the close of day. One felt 
Him now and then as He went through His small- 
est world, perhaps in the evening when the crickets 
sang, perhaps over the moonlit waters, or 
with the little winds of dawn . . . Such strength 
and kindliness, and the majestic eyes were trou- 
bled; for, sympathetic toward the wayward, the 
bothered, the weak . . . They only hardened 


KINGDOM AND POWER AND GLORY 387 


with the promise of terror for the hypocrite, 
the traitor, for those who devoured widows’ 
houses . . . 

“Who art in heaven, . . 

He smiled to himself at the thought of hea- 
ven. There was where one’s fancy was free, to 
realize all the sweet desires of what was good in 
one . . . To those who deserved it God would 
not begrudge His heaven ... A quiet place, 
Shane thought, a hushed place, a place of rest 
. . . Whither one might go to realize again all 
the beauty one had ever known . . . All that 
one had held sweet and wonderful would be there 
— they had not died ... A white magic would 
bring back the laughter of babies, and kisses 
gently given . . . and all estrangements of 
friends and lovers would be eased there, and they 
would be brought together in a magical trysting- 
place, and there would be no unharmony . . . 
All the horses one had ever loved would take 
shape in the air, with necks stretched and whin- 
nying recognition . . . All the great ships one 
had wondered at would appear when called, their 
spread of snowy canvas, their tapering spars 
. . . All the dogs one had had would be 
there . . . their yelps of joy, their sweet brown 
eyes, their ears up, their tails wagging ... all 
the dogs would be there! 


388 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


“Hallowed be Thy name . . 

The head must bow there. The name evoked 
a thought, and the thought was ineffable, such 
glory and sweetness and strength it had . . . 
Names brought pictures. When the word 
“Helen” was uttered, one saw the burned towers 
of Troy . . . And “Venice,” massive shadows 
and great moonlit waters . . . And Genghis 
Khan brought the riot of galloping horses and 
the Tartar blades a-flash . . . Such power great 
words had, and this was the greatest word, so 
great as to be terrible, and not to be mentioned 
by petty men, who cheapen with their grudging 
tongues ... No picture there, but some great 
anthem of the stars . . . Not as yet could our 
ears hear it . . . Nor would they ever hear it, 
if we had not reverence. 

“Thy kingdom come . . .” 

Some immense plan existed, which human mind 
could never see. No practical wisdom could ever 
grasp. Were all the sum of practical wisdom 
gathered in a little room, and infused with spirit 
until it burst the four walls of the world, yet it 
might not grasp it ... Yet all things worked 
that this plan should come to fruition. The stars 
rolled in their courses. The great winds came. 
There fell the rain of April and the soft Decem- 
ber snow . . . And the kingdom was a good 


KINGDOM AND POWER AND GLORY 389 


kingdom, for nothing evil conquered ever . . . 
It died and was eliminated, and when it was all 
as nothing then might the kingdom come . . . 
no arbitrary blowing of Gabriel’s trumpet, but 
that foremost sweetness that comes from the 
west wind . . . 

“Thy will be done on earth . . 

It was always done on earth, but the ignoble, 
the inglorious, the small put their petty obstacles 
in its way, and delayed the coming of the kingdom 
. . . Men grew engrossed in their affairs, grew 
self-sufficient. A little money in their pockets, 
and God was forgotten. A little more and they 
despised their fellow-men, and hatred arose. 
And evil wars came, and years were lost . . . 
Cunning men put the emotions, the ideals, the 
actions of glorious men up for barter . . . And 
the men who were tricked brooded . . . And the 
cunning men took the land and the waters and 
the light, and worked tortuously until they could 
sell them at a price . . . And the things God 
had made for his people were the means to pro- 
cure these dark folk wine and mistresses and the 
state of kings . . . Such was not the doing of the 
Will . . . But one day it would be worked out 
by men how these things could not ever again be 
. . . The slow certain coming of the king- 
dom . . . 


390 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


“As it is in heaven . . 

From the green resting-place came all that was 
sweet and harmonious, the shape of clouds, the 
high spirit of horses, the loyalty of dogs, the 
graceful movement swans have, and the song of 
the lesser birds. From that green resting-place 
came the gold of the gorse, and the sweet line of 
trees, and the purple the heather has — the loved 
heather. Thence came the word that set the 
friendly moon on high, and put out the white 
beauty of the young and alternated sunshine with 
the rains of spring. All was done there accord- 
ing to wisdom and beauty. 

“Give us this day our daily bread . . 

That was no whine for the prisoner’s dole. 
That was the simplicity of asking that the moon 
and the sun still rise. Give beauty to women, 
and grace to children, and songs for poets to 
sing. Let not the green tree wither, but send 
it rain. And give a little softness to the hearts 
of callous men. And remind us that widows 
live, and that there are fatherless. Teach us 
how to heal sickly children, and be easy on horses. 
And give us gentleness. And when roses grow 
on the walls in June, put a bud in our hearts . . . 

“And forgive us our trespasses . . .” 

The picture that came into Shane’s mind then 
was not the picture of an abased man beating his 


KINGDOM AND POWER AND GLORY 391 


breast, but the thought of a mature man clang- 
ing through the halls of heaven past every guard 
until he came where wisdom and beauty was, and 
standing and throwing back his head: “I have 
done wrong,” he would say, “rotten wrong, and 
I ’m wretched about it.” And there would be 
an answer: “You did right to come.” 

“As we forgive those who trespass against 

us . . .” 

Ah! That was hard! That was the most 
difficult thing in the world, the Celt in Shane 
knew. The horripilation of the skin, the twitch- 
ing nostrils, the feeling for the knife in the arm- 
pit .. . When one was young, the careless word, 
the savage blow, the brooding feud . . . But men 
grew better with the increase of the years, and 
with maturity came the sense that not every one 
could insult or hurt a man. The jibes and tres- 
p>asses of petty people meant so little, and one 
sensed the Destiny, the strange veiled One, bal- 
anced in His own wise time the evil done a man 
with unexpected good . . . One grew wiser even 
yet with the years and knew that a great wrong 
was outside one’s personal jurisdiction . . . One 
had to leave that to the broad justice of the High 
God . . . One could appeal there, as with the 
old cri de haro of Norman low . . . Haro! 
harof A Vaide, mon prince. On me fait tort! 


392 


THE WIND BLOWETH 


Hither! Hither! Help me, my king; one dropped 
on one’s knees in the market-place : I am 
being injured overmuch! And it was the 
prince’s duty to help feal men ... To forgive 
trespasses — only one understood in maturity, one 
grew to it . . . The strong and wise were the 
meek, not the weaklings . . . the men who knew 
that justice was absolute . . . the men with the 
calm eyes and the grim smile, they were the 
terrible meek . . . 

“And lead us not into temptation . . .” 

A little cry of humility that was, a very human 
reminder to the Only Perfect One that we in 
this very small world were weak. Work we had 
to do, destinies to fulfil, but under weakness, or 
from false strength, one might wander from our 
appointed path . . . The power of office, let 
it breed arrogance . . . the sense of money, let 
it not bring smug callousness . . . And the 
singers of the world be proud only of the trust, 
but humble in themselves as the birds are among 
the trees . . . And let not strength have con- 
tempt, but gentleness . . . 

“But deliver us from all evil . . .” 

There were dark places in the world, and one 
needed guidance there, protection . . . From 
Satan, who is not a spirit, but a horrible miasma, 
that floats in little vapors here and there, when 


KINGDOM AND POWER AND GLORY 393 


the clean winds are resting . . . from the warm 
inviting and evil jungle where one might seek 
relief in distress, or having been over-long in the 
high air . . . from the twisted souls of dark 
men and women who seek to sully as with writh- 
ing piteous hands . . . from deep sinister pools 
we know are thick with horror but feel charmed 
toward, as one feels like plunging to death from 
the summit of some building terribly high . . . 
From these. Lord God, deliver us ! 

“For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and 
the glory, 

“For ever and ever.” 

























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